The Vampire Lovers
by General Spielsdorf
Summary: Adaptation of the classic Hammer Horror film.


The Karnsteins: A History of Evil

Part the Second:

The Vampire Lovers

By

Joachim von Hartog

Translated from the Austro-Bavarian

By

Donald Richardson

Based on the screenplay of the classic Hammer Film

_**The Vampire Lovers**_

© 1970 Hammer Film Productions Limited

"_The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference._

_To swing from deep, profound emotion to no emotion at all..."_

Dr. Terry Sinton MB ChB FRCPA

"_And it is only through flesh that spirit lives."_

Joseph Adriano

Once when the sky was midnight blue

I knelt and prayed and summoned you

To rise up from your ebon grave

I'd do your bidding, be your slave.

Then as the sky turned nightmare black

You whispered sweet your answer back

Enrapt me in your vampire wings

And taught me what Death's pleasure brings.

Enticed me to your mouldy grave

And from its silken coffin gave

Your promise to the dying moon

I would return in darkness soon.

Chapter One:

Memoriam

In which Baron Hartog explains the nature of the vampire and of how he avenged the death of his sister.

On the map, within the Circle of Austria, bordering the territories of Poland and Hungary is marked the Duchy of Stiria. It is a province steeped in Germanic and Slavonic tradition, a margrivate to the Austrian Crown kept insulate by a rigid spine of lofty snow-capped mountains. To the north, the Duchy, for most of its breadth is split by these mountains, and the rocky peaks extend eastward to the distant Turkish dominions and the Adriatic. Cresting over these alpine heights the morning sun burns away the night's pale mists, evaporating the fogs into glorious days with blue painted skies. The region, because of its altitude, is composed of a storied landscape. On the hilly, lushly verdant slopes are both pastures and forests. In the sunny meadows the farmer herds his goats and cows, their iron bells clang hollowly as they graze among the wildflowers. By contrast the forest with its cool and sylvan deeps plays host to many a species of bird and beast. Camouflaged in the shifting light are timid deer, fleet and ethereal amid the shadows and in the fields songbirds twitter; the hedges and the rolling fields are abundant with yellow and white flowers, butterflies and bees pollinate the prettily scented petals. On the terraces wine grapes hang on the vine like purple and white confections, sparkling with dew. Both the lower plains and the higher climes of the Stirian hills are pleated with corkwood and pine forests, its byways are planted with prickly ash all mottled with a distinctive grey-green bark. On the vertiginous mountain inclines the conifers thicken and reach skyward in stepped tiers. The woods are home to the common partridge and the pheasant, the spotted woodpecker and the cuckoo. Aloft in the skies the alpine swift, kites and hawks soar and tumble in the high breezes and their rapid plunges to the terrestrial earth are a spectacle that will take away your breath. If you journey in these parts and take respite in one on the many rustic village inns, you will find that the towns too are built into levels and layers. Streets arise in stages, linked by steps, sometimes three or four and sometimes many, many more, and only certain common ways allow for cart or carriage traffic. All the towns are embraced by verdant woodlands, and because of this you may be inclined to engage in an early constitutional forest walk. In your walk you might climb several picturesque ridges and valleys, and if you take with you a set of spying glasses you may be lucky enough to see some of those wonderful aforementioned creatures in their mountain high habitat. Hiking ever upward you will at length come upon the pleasing vista of the numerous castle ruins that dot the countryside. Some ruins are placed high above tiny villages, and others rise over caldera lakes where the placid waters lie in the cradle of the mountainous embrace. These views always inspire awe and astonishment, for they are like fairy tale castles reflected in the blue waters, with turrets all shining white stone in the sunshine. In this artist's landscape of lacustrine waters trout and whitefish are to be found in abundance and fishing is as much a staple of the peasants table as it is for the sport of tourists. The higher climes bring forth springs and streams fed from these lakes, streams that run with sweet and clear drinking water into the lower lands. The morning mist hangs like a veil over ethereal marshes and meres, and on these placid waters may be glimpsed the wraithlike heron or the delicate swan. Eventually all of these waters flow into rivulets and these in turn flow into the broader rivers of the Muehr and the Danube. Like the many-headed Hydra of Greek legend, these rivers converge to snake all the way through the Bohemian kingdom and onward to the Black Sea. Stitched into the patchwork of fertile meadows and vales are those previously noted tiny hamlets that huddle under their feudal monument and wherein the peasantry toils at wine making, dairy farming and timber cutting and carpentry. The summer days are golden and cerulean, the winter nights are dusted white and frozen, and yes dear traveller, all is a marvel for the eye to behold. But alas this fairy tale Stirian scenery is both lushly beautiful and somehow vaguely hostile, and despite this region's indisputable beauty it is truth that the terrain, if you are unfamiliar with it, can prove quite dangerous. When visiting here it is best to procure the services of a knowledgeable guide lest you wander from the path and encounter the wolf or the bear. But therein is the difficulty, for very few people will offer you their services if you insist on engaging in such a reckless endeavour. Yet here I must take pause and unfortunately colour the pallet of landscape with a hue of a darker shade. Despite the obvious and physical dangers there are other dangers in this country, dangers of a treacherous and secretive, perhaps metaphysical nature of which you must be made aware. Such dangers do not belong to the world of reason and are often alluded to but hardly ever given name. Any peasant will assure you that the airy heights are indeed beautiful, but they also warn that visitors should not adopt a cavalier attitude to local custom and belief. It might be concurred that the ways of the local people are simple and crude compared to the culture and sophistication of the cities of Rakesburg or Gratz. But such is the demarcation between the primitive and the civilised. To follow the roads north, guided by mile stones erected in ancient Roman times, you must cross through the mountains to return to a world ruled by modern rationale, one that has no room for superstition. Perhaps the mountains serve as a barrier, for beyond them it is so easy to forget the ancient market towns, monuments and cloisters inhabited by a people who are sporadically friendly and oft far from hospitable but whose ways are as unfamiliar to you as yours is to them. The call of civilization might find you happily forsaking the rural for the glittering and gala world of Vienna and at least in Vienna you will tell yourself, there is affluence and plenty, there is education and not superstition, there is light as opposed to shadow. There you may either dance or be gay in the great manor houses of the rich, or you may study the sciences at renowned academies or universities. You may even visit some of the less than respectable addresses such as the notorious Ringstrasse if you are so inclined. Moreover, for those who live in the cities the cultured metropolitan world is a very different realm. City people have little time for the rustic ways and beliefs of the common people, and oft live in contempt of their pastoral brethren for the bucolic peasantry live and breathe folktales. Yet folktales have a habit of being more than just superstition and the deeper into the country of Stiria you go, the more profound the beliefs become. I know because I have experienced the darker side of those beliefs and I am not so willing to dismiss their fears. For the people in my homeland of Moravia the native superstitions segue so easily into those of the Stirian people and although all God fearing folk who pray to the Lord, the old beliefs still hold strong. Like my kinsmen, I know it is not so forgivable to reject fear as mere fantasy. There are things that exist, things that are borne of the dark, raised by evil and that require our sterling faith in God's truth if we are to defeat them. Regard me a superstitious fool if you will, and deride me doubly when I tell you that I hold title, that of Baron and by that title might I have built an intellect upon the shoulders of privilege. But title alone does not a brave man make. Although mine is a title I was indeed born to, many have mistakenly thought that it is a Baronetcy awarded in bravery. No doubt this is because I entered into the military service not long after the events I now relate, yet even so I still hold fear close to my soul. And let it be here stated that although this new and glorious Age of Enlightenment might serve as cynosure to most, I know that even it must bow to the divine power. Yet do I stand steadfast in what I say in that I still give credence to the parochial teachings of my grandparents. They were of an older and earthier culture, and my Grandmother in particular did not take lightly the powers of evil. She had been taught by her mother defensive spells, sympathetic magick that she swore was the best way to ward off and guard against dark forces. Some of these rites she passed on to me, and scoff if you must that in wild contradiction to this statement I should also wear and believe in the power of the holy cross. But faith is just that, faith, and it demands a suspension of belief, even in the face of a truly hideous truth. I do not wear the cross simply as adornment, for the cross to me is the symbol of that faith, of a true faith and within that faith, throughout the twisting evolution of the Christian spirit, shines my hope in the holy protection of the one Lord and Saviour. The world of the preternatural _does_ exist, to this I most profoundly attest, and mankind of all creed and caste have been tormented and vexed by its power since the Serpent first slithered into Eden. Yet no matter what the spoken tongue, evil is no less universal, and its monsters reach toward us from the shadows, to swallow the sun and enslave our world in darkness. Believe me, I do not jest, and I am sincere when I tell you that there _are_ manifestations of the black arts that lie without the various dominions of man, that the principalities of evil are widespread and infectious, that there are influences that once ill met might bring catastrophe among the good. I had always considered myself righteous in everything I did, that I considered the needs of every man and knew courage and humility. Yet because of those very notions was I foolish and blinded and damned. I did not for a moment think that happiness would flow into the same river as do tears. Thus am I compelled in the perpetual struggle against the night, and to watch for the signs that the befouled are walking among us. But before you laugh away my tale and believe me the victim of a mad hallucination, yet must I plead that you have trust in its veracity, and, come with me if you dare, and I will take you far from Vienna's candlelit palaces and glittering ballrooms and into the dim woods, into the very heart of Stiria, and then deeper into a twilight world of unspeakable horror. Once you have read my _History of Evil_, and I swear that every word of it is true, perhaps you may have cause to pause the next time the wind whispers under the eaves or when the clock strikes midnight. Perhaps you may wish to take a nervous glance under the bed before you retire, or perhaps you may want to leave the candle burning throughout the night and tremble nervously in the slight comfort its weak illumination may bring. Yet be assured of this, you are not alone in your fears for even I still quake at the very thought of what has passed. For the darkness yet lives. It writhes with shapes and shadows, it whispers of unnatural longings and sighs and laughs mockingly. The dark stalks like a thief, a murderer and it causes the flesh to quake and in the weak it drives the mind to insanity and no joyous dance or studious rationale can ever be the antidote to fear. For the dark hours propagate terrible things that even I might have once foolishly discredited as unreal, things that God would not permit to walk amidst his flock, and yet they do. Alas such fiendish demoniac forms, the mercenaries of Satan _are_ manifest in the world of man and believe me when I tell you that the night is filled with perverted creatures that find their victims everywhere.

I put down my pen and from its tip blooms a drop of ink that might just as well be a drop of blood. Both ichors and negritude are blackened and befouled by the close company of death and each has recorded dreadful events. Here, in this book, are presented the final words of a tale so unbelievable that I still wish to think it all a terrible dream. No, my mind is not of a fever nor seduced by madness, for I have shed in this tragedy my own tears and have sought solace in the graces of the Almighty. Yet believing this story a phantasy cannot be further from the awful truth. The moment, the very hour that I write these words fills me with a melancholy and yearning for the loving smile and the sweet kisses of my doomed Isabella, and that bitterness shall never cease until justice is served and the blasphemers piled up before the gates of death. So, thus ends my account of the fearsome Kirstein's, and with that, if I have done my work well, shall their unnatural race be damned to the deepest pits of the abyss and wiped clean of the earth. Before God, may we be spared from these supernatural happenings again. This history is much more than simply a tale to be told huddled before the hearth and it is also much more than a terrifying legend. It is a tale that speculates upon immortality and of how death is but a byroad that circumvents the provinces of Hell. I place this memoriam card in the pages of my history and the book is closed, I pray forever. The card serves a grim reminder of the temporal and fragile nature of our lives and of the dreadful things that sometimes inhabit the likeness of our own skins. It is a tale of the nature of deception and how trickery and lies have the power to bring about calamity, and anyone can be deceived and anyone can suffer tragedy. I had the card printed in Gratz, printed on the finest of bleached papyrus. Note that it is embossed with an overlapping black line border and amid the dual floral embellishment there is a decorative lily whose petals open like a chalice from which to pour out the soul. The black letter font reads:

In Memoriam

Isabella von Hartog

1775 - 1794

If you could have known my lovely, sweet sister, even after the briefest acquaintance, you would have agreed that no finer young woman was ever met. Isabella had no peer, at least not to my eye. She was of an uncompromising virtue and possessed of a promise for life that shone and dazzled all whom she knew and verily did she spend her days ensuing the happiness of others. There were those who adored her pretty smile and there were those whose anxiety would simply melt away at the touch of her placid hand. Hers was a joy that strengthened, reassured and comforted. She was never proud, our dear Isabella, a girl whose exquisite, youthful bud was so cruelly, so viciously severed at the stem. Only in remorse must I now recall the pink flush of vitality that coloured her cheek and the sparkle of crystal that once flashed in her eyes. I still hear the harmony as of the tinkling of bells in her voice, and there was starlight and silver in the ebon lustre of her thick long hair. She used to wear it in a plait across her crown with long ringlets that cascaded over her white shoulders. I sigh even now in sadness that I shall no longer feel the sweet warmth of her lips on my cheek, the soft touch of her caress, the perfume from her dark hair. Isabella can only now haunt the realms of my dreams. Upon Isabella's coming of age my parents had anticipated that she might marry into a good family. Although I shared not their enthusiasm for Isabella to marry, a Baron and an Earl, both from neighbouring provinces and from equally respectable families had each expressed their hopes for courting the lovely young woman. That I felt somewhat envious should a handsome stranger woo Isabella away from our happy home made life seem suddenly unbearable, yet little did I realise that an even more insidious horror would stalk from the shadows and rend all of our lives into shreds as would a knife. A fortunate marriage and a happy life were not to be Isabella's destined fate. How devastated were my mother and father, the former who nurtured and the later that doted. Both have never recovered. Mother weeps every day and father has become melancholic. And as for me, well, no words that I write here can express my loss. The agony of dim Providence has covered all of our hearts with a dark mantle and swallowed Isabella's purity and extinguished her young life in one horrible and suffocating embrace. And here I say purity in that not only her flesh but her spirit were thus tainted, and yet how pitiless is Fate, so ruthless and brutal that it should take a blossom so fresh, one so gentle and kind from those who nurtured, from those who loved. Isabella was taken from us, yet still not destined for Heaven to be among the virtuous. In her final agonies her soul was damned. I shudder that the torments still corrupt and blacken her soul, and may God alone forgive! May this volume then commemorate not only her beauty forever and for always, but may it also act as aide memoire for a young woman of nineteen years, pretty and in the flourish of her maidenhood and that she died a terrible death. To those who may chance read its contents after I too have gone unto dust, take heed. Here, in this black leather bound tome I have written in full of how my sister died and how I, the Baron Hartog avenged her death.

The enemies I sought were no ordinary mortals. They were murderers from beyond the grave. For this ruined castle where I lay in wait had once been the home of the Karnstein family. Let it be here stated that the Karnstein family were not predestined to the Lord's salvation. Unlike mortal man who is free to accept grace and to do good deeds and to die in peace, they were evil and therefore damned and thus denied redemption. They were the servants of Satan and partook of every vice that wealth and power could tender. Upon a craggy peak, accessible only by a long unused and overgrown byway, observing a tiny hamlet that stands in its shadow is the malignant edifice of their ancestral abode. Its walls are of granite and stand over a metre thick and although some forty years ago it fell into disrepair, when the common people stormed its grated portcullis and razed it by fire into ruins, it still could not be destroyed. That tale though is related in a previous volume of this history and so it must herewith suffice to say that the castle now squats above the countryside as if it were a huge, threatening brute, under the pale blue moon pinned in a midnight blue sky. Slate and blue-grey are the layers of the mountainous backdrop that sprawls beyond its stony turrets and secure on its eagle's perch the castle watches over the night. It stands protectorate of all the black secrets that were whispered within its thick and mortared walls, its tombs decaying under blankets of cold mist.

The castle's graveyard sprawls adjacent to the tower, desolate and ghostly in the dark, its rows of grave and mausoleum are the dominion of broken and limbless funereal statuary. One dreadful evening found me a hunter in this haunted realm, galvanised by a terrible excitement that made my heart race and the blood thrum in my veins. I had travelled many kilometres, from afar Moravia, through many change of horses and spent many days in the saddle, passing between river and mountain before entering the province of Stiria. It was with difficulty that I learned of my intended destination, for the peasants en route, always on guard against calamity, wished not to divulge the location of Castle Karnstein. For them the great house was a byword, a place that did not exist and they would turn away their eyes and drop their voices and make the sign of the cross whenever the appellation left my lips. And their fears were very real. When they did release their tongues and whisper lowly they spoke only of darkness and of death, and how violence had returned to their region after many years of slumber. Their lives were lived in fear for the devil had come among them again and it now whetted its appetite upon their blood. For the local people the Karnsteins were nobility corrupt and to rise against them meant also incurring the ire of the Emperor. Both God and State seemed to have deserted the common man when the name Karnstein fell from one's lips. For that once great and powerful family had taken a wilful departure from the divine and in so doing they had spurned God and seeded a germ of wickedness. It was to invite death to speak of them. Neither could sympathy nor gold loosen the peasant tongues. One early morn, about a week into my search I put my horse to stable and took a meal at a tavern in the village of Karnstein. Under a garland of purple garlic flowers, and in the gleam of a silver cross nailed to the wall, did I sit with the inn keeper's son. Having introduced myself to the young man and stated my mission, he told me that his name was Kurt and that his father would turn me out if he knew of my quest in seeking the castle of the Karnsteins. It was with difficulty that I elicited any information from the young man at all and it took some doing, but after a while did I manage to secure his partial confidence. "My vengeance," I said unto the young man "is driven by a vehement passion for justice. I wish no harm to anyone, but I need information and perhaps you can help me. Tell me please, where am I to find the ruins of Karnstein castle, for it must be hereabouts?" Although Kurt's dialogue amounted to few words, his eyes were wide with terror, and he at length, and after much coercion, told me that on the edge of the town I would come upon a rutted path, an overgrown way being all that remained of a road that disappeared into the forests and wound high up the lofty mountain. He had taken me roughly by the arm and drawn me to the inn door and flung it open and had pointed skyward. His finger had stabbed fearfully at the air, at a vague and phantom shape within the cloudy morning mists above the hamlet. "There!" he had exclaimed, "that is where you must go." Even as he spoke the veil of fog drew apart to reveal a crumbling ruin towering like Babel over the land. It was as if the reveal was intended for my eyes alone, like a divine sign that disclosed for me the terrible place to which I must go and the destiny that drove me forward. I shuddered upon beholding the spectacle and asked him if he might offer to be my guide, but he fervently declined. Kurt intimated bluntly that I should give up my quest for fear of my life and turning away had wished me good fortune and the blessing of God. Yet before he left my side he muttered that even God himself was not likely to save me if I went up there. "People do not go up there," he told me, "and if they do they never come back." Anxious, but determined to advance, I watched him shrink away and thanked him and turning he nodded his head. "I understand your need for vengeance," he then uttered, "though talk no more of your passion, but rather cling to your faith and hope. Perhaps that is all that might save you. May the light of heaven guide you now and see you safely to your mission." And so it was that I left the inn with a heavy heart and thought upon his words as I took that road he had described leading all the way up to the sky vault. Thus I walked all day, and as the day drew to its end, as the sky drained from blue to mulberry and then to pitch did I climb the final precipice upon which Castle Karnstein hulked. The moon arose and shone like a cool blue coin in the night sky. By its steely light I found my path, treacherous though it was, and as I entered the castle courtyard I shook for fear at what I must do. The thick mists were chill and damp and curled about my thighs, the breath of the dragon seeped under my breeches and cloak, making my skin clammy and damp. The great oaken door presented itself before me like a ravenous mouth; a maw that once entered must surely swallow me whole and obliterate my existence from the world. Groaning on rusty hinges the heavy door gave way and opened inward. In the dim light I breached its interior dark, no one, not a single living creature did I encounter, for no living being had disturbed the silence in this place for those long forsaken forty years. The sound of my forced entry reverberated in the dark like a mocking cry and I paused, frozen and stilled, motionless for the passing of several heartbeats. At length, when the last resonance had died I eased the door closed behind me and thrust the iron bolt secure before I entered the chapel. Within was a stagnant world enwrapped in a pall of moribund shadow. My footfalls were stifled echoes in the silence, my path lit by a flickering torch, a blazing beam that I held high, and it cast an orange lambency into the dark, throwing a parody of my terrified shadow upon the cold stones. Fervidly my eyes strained in the dimness. By the torchlight I saw halberd and spear and I glimpsed the remnants of tattered pennants that drooped listlessly above my head. Rusted gisarme, dulled axes and armoury littered the floor. As I have said, the castle, including this deconsecrated chapel had long ago been destroyed by revolt or by past insurrection, an uprising that now saw its floors bestrewn with debris. Broken pews were piled one against the other, a golden cross and a golden chalice lay upon the altar, the cross inverted, the cup overturned and spun with cobwebs. And spider's silk festooned every wall and every arch. A great suspended wheel depended on a chain over my head, its candelabra hanging tilted and from fractured spokes rivers of frozen wax were stalactites that had ceased dripping in the tainted air. From this wheel threads of dusty silk trailed a fragile connecting bridge to the filthy surface of a great oak table. Every broken piece of furniture, every tarnished plate and goblet thrown about the floor, every rotten parchment and tapestry bore witness to that past and brutal conflict. There were many portraits here too, lining the halls and the walls, some they do they never come back." Anxious, but determined to advance, I watched him shrink away and thanked him and turning he nodded his head. "I understand your need for vengeance," he then uttered, "though talk no more of your passion, but rather cling to your faith and hope. Perhaps that is all that might save you. May the light of heaven guide you now and see you safely to your mission." And so it was that I left the inn with a heavy heart and thought upon his words as I took that road he had described leading all the way up to the sky vault. Thus I walked all day, and as the day drew to its end, as the sky drained from blue to mulberry and then to pitch did I climb the final precipice upon which Castle Karnstein hulked. The moon arose and shone like a cool blue coin in the night sky. By its steely light I found my path, treacherous though it was, and as I entered the castle courtyard I shook for fear at what I must do. The thick mists were chill and damp and curled about my thighs, the breath of the dragon seeped under my breeches and cloak, making my skin clammy and damp. The great oaken door presented itself before me like a ravenous mouth; a maw that once entered must surely swallow me whole and obliterate my existence from the world. Groaning on rusty hinges the heavy door gave way and opened inward. In the dim light I breached its interior dark, no one, not a single living creature did I encounter, for no living being had disturbed the silence in this place for those long forsaken forty years. The sound of my forced entry reverberated in the dark like a mocking cry and I paused, frozen and stilled, motionless for the passing of several heartbeats. At length, when the last resonance had died I eased the door closed behind me and thrust the iron bolt secure before I entered the chapel. Within was a stagnant world enwrapped in a pall of moribund shadow. My footfalls were stifled echoes in the silence, my path lit by a flickering torch, a blazing beam that I held high, and it cast an orange lambency into the dark, throwing a parody of my terrified shadow upon the cold stones. Fervidly my eyes strained in the dimness. By the torchlight I saw halberd and spear and I glimpsed the remnants of tattered pennants that drooped listlessly above my head. Rusted gisarme, dulled axes and armoury littered the floor. As I have said, the castle, including this deconsecrated chapel had long ago been destroyed by revolt or by past insurrection, an uprising that now saw its floors bestrewn with debris. Broken pews were piled one against the other, a golden cross and a golden chalice lay upon the altar, the cross inverted, the cup overturned and spun with cobwebs. And spider's silk festooned every wall and every arch. A great suspended wheel depended on a chain over my head, its candelabra hanging tilted and from fractured spokes rivers of frozen wax were stalactites that had ceased dripping in the tainted air. From this wheel threads of dusty silk trailed a fragile connecting bridge to the filthy surface of a great oak table. Every broken piece of furniture, every tarnished plate and goblet thrown about the floor, every rotten parchment and tapestry bore witness to that past and brutal conflict. There were many portraits here too, lining the halls and the walls, some straight and some at angles, some slashed and torn, some worm eaten, but all were faces that looked down with cruel eyes. All of those eyes were dark and haughty eyes, and soulless. These were the Karnstein family ancestors, men and women, young and old, captured prisoner in the perimeters of dully gilded frames. Mould spores palpitated in the damp and had begun to devour those faces; grime had settled like sediment and disfigured all and every visage. The mould had begun to feast voraciously on painted cheek and brow and mouth. To this grim castle I had ventured alone, and amid the litter of past centuries, under the ghastly watch of those time haunted faces, I cleared my path, hurling aside worm-rotten timbers and rusted armoury. Even as I did this I threw a nervous eye over my shoulder. I could feel the dark staring boldly at my back, a cold and clinging pervasive sense of fear taunting me. Moments passed, and under the narrow and cruel surveillance of those ancient faces I ascended the stairs that wound about and constricted the throat of the tower. Upon reaching the gallery I gave the flame of my torch to another and placed the one I carried in a sconce by a loophole. Without that loophole the waxy moon glowed in the dark firmament, climbing all the way to the blinking stars, and by its light I watched from the ruined tower, looking down into that netherworld of slanted headstones and sculptured seraphim. Silver-blue glanced off the sheath of my sword, sparked like a winking star in the cold black onyx surface of the ring on my finger. That finger traced a line over the hilt of my blade and to still the beating of my heart I took a deep breath and then another. Down there, in the graveyard the trees clung to a half-life in the shadows, their trunks and branches skeletal and they were rotten in their roots, lightning had burnt and blasted others. The brush and bracken was of a sickly waxen olive green tint, shuddering in a chill wind under the blue moonbeams. Across the sea of mist the wind blew, swirling the fog into roils of undulating translucent waves, washing over velvet mosses and thick lichen. Darkness stained the marble facades of decrepit mausoleums. Suppressing a shudder I pulled my cloak tighter about my body. How grim was the deed I had set out to do, and yet how alive I felt, alive and goaded by defiance despite the peril and the snare. This chateau was empty, but not dead as we the living, know the dead, for the Karnstein scourge still haunted its ruin. They were practitioners of the black arts, and at certain times, their evil spirits, thrust out from their mouldering tombs and took a kind of human shape, to roam the countryside and seek for victims to satisfy their need, their passion, their thirst for blood. Down there, under the wreckage of a lightning struck tree, even as I looked on, a phantasm began to emerge from its grave and a frisson passed through my body. I watched on both fascinated and horrified, not knowing the profundity of what I gazed upon, nor did I fully comprehend how the phenomenon that I witnessed was able to transmute cold stone and take on a form like mine, change its intangible essence for a body that appeared as flesh and blood. In the cold and sterling moonlight I beheld a thread of mist begin to leak from a fissure in the stone. At first the misty essence rose slowly, but as it gathered force, like a tidal swell, like a plume of deepest grey it streamed faster and thicker and deeper and blacker. As if from a cauldron the vapour poured, vomiting in a geyser above the tomb, and jetting upward it coalesced into a swirling column that seemed to spark with flecks of star fire. Those tiny flickers were of xanthin and ruby and they whirled round and round, revolving and spinning in rapid circles. How they danced and crackled with galvanic energy, churned and swept along as if propelled by a fountain spewed forth by some convulsive upheaval of the earth. Dust coalesced into shape and substance within that smoky, boiling cloud and the hand of gravity compressed and moulded a form from the dead clay. Like pictures caught and revolving in a rapidly flickering light I beheld the vision as fancy. Fear and expectation inflamed my mind and I cannot be certain of what form it truly assumed, but as the plume thickened and boiled faster and faster so did it begin to solidify and become substance. When the last sparks extinguished and the column of vapour had dissipated, there stood in the graveyard of the Karnsteins a figure draped from head to foot in the cerements of the tomb. The revenant shuddered in its grave clothes and its illusory shape rippled in the shadows. Lit by the blue-tinged moonbeams and in the guise of a hideous and faceless Salome, the creature slowly turned about, as if performing the first hesitant steps of a weird dance and as it turned it shrugged off a thin and gauzy veil. The veil fell listlessly to the ground, into the tide of fog, falling in slow motion, coiling and slithering as a serpent slithers, collapsing into an undulating pile beside the grave stone. There it might have become all but lost unto my vision, had I not marked the spot with my eye, shivering even as I felt for the handle of my sword. Before its winding sheet was stilled the thing moved off into the concealing mist, floating as if it did not tread its foot upon the earth, and disappeared. My eye was wide with fear and my throat ran dry and although my first instinct was trepidation it was blind panic that goaded me and demanded that I flee. And how I truly wished to be gone from this place and forego my vengeance, but I could not, for I must not fail in my mission, not when my beloved sister lay dead in her grave and these demons were free to find new victims. For sometimes it is the nature of the demon to court its victim, as it did with Isabella, savouring its enjoyment, and at other times its feral bloodlust would cause it to strangle and exhaust at a single feast. Through the loving memory of Isabella did I gather forth enough strength and fortitude to lead me past this night, and praise is to the Lord that I did not falter in my intended purpose. Thus I knew that the demon would quickly kill to sate its vile hematophagy, to feast as a glutton feasts and return soon thereafter. An awful silence rang a deathly pall over the night. Yes, all was silent except for the frantic thumping of my heart, but I knew the spectre, when satiated would return to its grave. I also knew that without the shroud in which it was interred to cloak its festering body, there could be no night of rest for any vampire!

For vampires, those spirits of the dead that have refused a quiet grave have haunted the frontiers of many distant lands. History records that only two score years ago an epidemic of vampirism held the Balkan countries in a grip of terror. Its victims were many, and its infections spread through many counties. It was that very manifestation that precipitated the events that led to a peasant uprising within these very walls of Castle Karnstein. The villagers, plagued by a terrible vexation, rose in revolt against the licentious Count Karnstein, libidinous and vile practitioner of the Satanic Rites and in angered defiance they destroyed his house. But I digress from the scourge of vampirism; for you may wonder and question for what purpose does the spirit leave its grave? Why should the dead arise from beneath the crust of the earth and assume a form of ponderable matter to assault and torment the living? Because the vampire is like unto a leech that needs blood, warm, Elysian and pure human blood to nurture its unearthly body. Vampires are damned to exist eternally, but in order to do so they must feed upon the living. When such loathly shapes come upon humans they attack with cunning pertinacity. These ghosts when they visit mankind oft induce a swooning stupor, and that trance always leads to misery and death. Thus do the undead exhaust their victims, consuming them in an unnatural courtship that leaves families destroyed, families such as mine. Foolishly we invite them in, for they must be bid enter, welcomed and protected, loved even as we love our own. Nothing is more artful and cunning as are these monsters, unknowing are we and even sceptic when we ultimately suspect all too late the worse. And so are we left to live out our lives in enduring sorrowing tones, marked forever by the dreadful malignancy that has passed over our threshold leaving the mark of the cloven hoof upon the doorstep. On rare occasions the vampire sometimes initiates interminable and amorous desires for the love of its victim. When it does this the intended is doomed. It condemns the prey to an unending twilight existence of bleak immortality like unto its own, and thus the victim is drawn into a passive form of parasitic subsistence. The victims themselves in their turn languish and die and sometimes if the demon decrees they return from the grave only to feed upon those who loved them. I thank God that such was not the fate of my beloved sister, yet cruelly was her soul stained and her entrance into Heaven now and forever forbidden. Mercy was granted my mother and my father in that Isabella left this life but did not walk again as the undead, yet her last moments were the moments of a compact with evil and her desires were as unnatural as was the creature that had sapped away her life. Still the vampire is transmutable and its forms varied, and it is known to take on the shape and form of other things, of living creatures that are known haunters of the dark. In the guise of animals, of wolves and bats and other daemonic familiars yet are these hideous manifestations still bound by certain laws to which they must abide. For in some regions the fiend may not cross running water during the daytime passage of the sun, while in others the garlic herb, its tubers and flowers are said to be proof and potent against its vile contamination. Some of these spectres cannot walk in the sunlight while others are but weakened when exposed to it, and move with a declining lassitude in its warming rays. Despite this indolence they are free still to move about in the daylight hours, to go from one household to another to spread their vile contamination. Some vampires fear religious symbols, and when they do come among us and attack in their phrency and in their madness for blood, yet may their horror be lessened, even temporarily banished by the cross or the crucifix if it cannot be completely repelled. I understood the truth of this dreadful paradox and it terrified me, frightens me even unto this very hour as I write down these words, for it is a macabre revelation to understand that such creatures can be killed but not destroyed. Yea do I speak the truth, for vampires have been known to resurrect. These monsters will return to plague the living should their extermination not be correctly accomplished, yet there is one common law among the undead that is always the same, and that is that the vampire must at some point take leave from it perfidious proclivities and return to its grave. Should the living corpse be tracked to its lair and its vile flesh disinterred as it sleeps, such monstrous Spectrum might be eradicated but not eliminated. So it is that I did what I had to do, and did it quickly, before the horror returned and found me, to drag my own soul screaming to the vile hell from whence it had come.

I left my post guided by the faint illumination cast by the nacre plume of my torch. How the shadows writhed over my cheek and splashed up the rough stone wall, rehearsing the emotional pain and the physical agony of the ghastly melodrama that was to come. At the base of the tower I did not pause, there could not be allowed one moment of hesitation or all would be lost and my vengeance would be as nothing. Quickly I descended the gallery and when I reached the great oaken panel of the entrance my trembling fingers closed about the long bolt. Thrusting the bolt aside again took all of the strength in my arm, and placing my shoulder against the door I heaved and pushed until the portal gave with a groan and opened onto the night. I can only hope that it was God who guided me through the mist to that place from whence the thing had emerged. With a cold thrill in my heart I stood above the cold stone slab of its grave, that spot beneath the gnarled tree that I had marked in my vision. By now the moon had shifted in its transverse journey through the night sky, moved higher and shone less blue, but aided by its pallid light I had found that grave and the shroud. The cerement lay coiled beside the stone, half concealed by the undulating vapours, and it glimmered and sparkled as if it were sprinkled over with chips of diamond, and it writhed sluggishly with a preternatural life of its own. It was with repulsion and loathing that I reached forward to touch the thing, moving as it did in volute and sinuous waves like some horrible serpent. I stooped beneath the blackened tree, under an overhanging branch and extended my clutching fingers. Volts of white heat leapt from the shroud to my flesh and the moment that I seized the fabric was the moment a thrill electric shivered through my body. The cerecloth resisted, unfurling and twisting up again in a wind about my wrist and arm. I gasped and pulled at it, and hastily I began to lash the grave rag in knots, a tie that would hold it fast and perhaps bide me a little more time. Frantically I called out upon the sympathy of the angels as I tied the knots, and whether they heard my plea above the violent roar of the blood through my veins I cannot say. For was not the practice of such magic to be considered in defiance of my own faith in God? There was no time now to consider this tortured thought, for if God did disapprove of my lingering heathen teachings then it would be God who punished me, though yet was I certain that it was his righteous hand that guided now mine own. Clumsily I managed the deed of knotting the veil, knowing that my time was short, and as I corded the unearthly material I uttered a broken invocation to the Lord to forgive my profane magic and quicken my fingers and render the shroud limp. Hastily I ran back to the tower and the stairs and the loophole overlooking the dark.

Below this castle lies the tiny hamlet of the village of Karnstein. If you stand in the market square and look up toward the mountain you can clearly behold the ruin of Karnstein Castle perched ominously upon its rocky edifice, although sometimes its vista is wreathed in grey cloud. Arranged in a vague circle the rustic public buildings, inn, shop, smith and bakery huddle about a central fountain. This cistern brings forth fresh water from the mountain streams and lakes and quietly, musically, it plashes from its font over the cool stones. A number of exotic fruit trees stand in great terracotta planters within the square, and their fruit, the olive, the pear and the orange when in bloom are free for the people to eat. Above the shop fronts flower pots decorate window boxes, sprays of pansy and violet and gerberas. Faint lights flicker in some of those windows. There are benches and barrels in the street, but the benches are empty and the street with its houses that seem to overhang the way and almost touch where eave nudges roof, is oriented toward the castle view. The streets climb in tiers and the smooth, cart-worn pavers winding about the steps lead past the last cottage and stop where the shadows disappear into the dark. In the moonlight the lanes begin to fill with a sea of fog. The vapours cover the cobbles and pour like smoke along the ground. This mist swirls and weaves rapidly, an unstoppable and vaticinal courier announcing a black and biblical Passover. No one sees and all is hushed. And into that ocean of undulating translucent vapour a twitching, pulsing and shrouded shape emerges, its cerements immaterial, rising and falling palpitate upon the misty tide. Under the cerecloth a vaguely human shape might be glimpsed, but the images of face and limb and eye are fleeting, are seemingly weightless and malleable, sublimated, floating and buoyant. There is no solidity about this being and it transverses the cobbled streets with speedy step, for the dead travel fast, its shrouds billowing in a storm of unrest. All of the sounds of the night are smothered in its passing; all animal sounds are choked off, no dog howls, no night bird calls and no mournful lowing issues from the stalls. Most of the locals have by this time retired for the evening but there is good and hearty cheer coming from the tavern. Filtering into the street there are only the sounds from the inn, the sounds of men and women laughing, of ale being poured, of a warm fire in the grate, of someone playing a light ditty on an accordion. In here, where the day ends for the farmer, the smith and the cobbler, a warm social evening among friends might be shared. For those who forsake their impoverished houses for a few hours the inn provides camaraderie and fellowship. There in friendly company they can exchange stories and a boast as they wash down their dinner with a stein of ale or lager. In the warm but suffused glow of the fire and the orange tongues of bracketed candles a pretty tavern wench throws back her head and laughs merrily, the landlord pours a beer, a man in a tri-cornered hat lights a long pipe and raises it to his lips. The young man at the far end of the bench has had one ale too many and must answer the call of nature. Rising from his seat he pushes past the girl. Even in his clouded senses he cannot help but notice the creamy whiteness of her skin and the low cut of the bosom of her dress, revealing the full swell of her breasts. With a broad smile he totters by her curvy form, patting a friend knowingly on the shoulder, winking in her direction as he moves toward the door and exits. She smiles knowingly in return. Perhaps, if he is lucky, the later evening shall find him sharing her bed. The door closes on the chatter and on the warm light. Outside, in the night, under the pale lighted lamp the young man loosens his belt and flies. All he hears is the raucous laughter from inside the tavern and does not notice that all other creatures are mute. His fingers free his member from his hose and he begins to make water. Along the inn facade, just over the young man's shoulder his shadow wavers in the moonlight. It begins a silent dance with another shadow that has sprung up out of the dark, merges with shape and form, with arms outstretched, with ghostly fingers. The shadow reaches forward and rolls down his cheek; it undoes the hooks in his shirt front and peels back the coarse linen, caresses his skin. He acquiesces without protest. Brushing against his nipple the shade strokes the young man's chest, and then the stroke goes lower, and lower, finds the now rigid shaft of his sex. He groans and his eyes widen as he looks down, his vision swimming with a blurring image of ghostly floating white that gathers about his groin, like a mouth, like red, red lips. In the pallid and shifting light the swain shudders and looks up and for a moment his face is blank, unrecognising, but then, even as he smiles in his wonder a torrent of scarlet spurts up the wall and surges hotly over the cold cobbled stones.

The girl takes a sip of ale, her eyes are twinkling, her lips are sweet and the braid of her yellow hair is shining in the firelight. She is everyone's sweetheart, everyone's merriment, laughing at a joke or two, not embarrassed by the touch of the drunken men who pore at her voluptuous curves. Yet even as she laughs the sound is frozen in her throat. Everyone freezes. From out of the dark a horrible scream shatters the gaiety. All faces glare toward the door and all hands cease movement or remain raised in a paralysis of stopped motion. The accordion player ceases playing; even the blue smoke from the man's pipe seems to solidify in the air. For the space of a heartbeat no one dares move, and then the door reverberates with a dreadful crash and the young woman almost cries out. She leaps from her seat and thrusts the men aside, foolish men who all too heroically make a path for her to pass. From outside, on the other side of that door they can hear a ghastly cacophony, a trembling, wild thrashing that pounds against the sturdy oak, a noise of beastly snarling and of tearing fabric that is all mixed up with a strangled, gasping shriek. Terrified the girl throws back the latch and pulls on the door, and it swings inward revealing the young man. Filling the door frame his body seems suspended as if in air, his fingers clawed, his face twisted into a mask of agony. From neck to waist his shirt has been ripped in twain, and there is blood, so much blood pouring down his chest that it spills like a red fountain from beneath his chin. The red pumps out and sprays the wall, the door, the young girl's cheek, and it spatters over the milky skin of her bosom and runs between her breasts. Before his body slumps and pitches forward, tumbling like a dead puppet into her embrace, the man's head jerks, twists and hangs suspended from the rent stump of his mutilated throat, his lips parted in a wide and silent scream. And the girl shrieks.

Perhaps I had been a fool in thinking that my thirst for revenge was equal to the true nature and power of the horror that is vampirism. That thought might have been vain, but I told my heart that if I held fast I might yet emerge triumphant, and in so doing I will have purged the earth of this abomination and saved many lives in the doing. So now the moment of reckoning had come upon me and yet I knew that I had crossed the precipice and could never turn back. Vengeance is a terrible master and its dictates bind you as slave to its need. My vengeance against this evil would be done but it alone would not suffice to end the terror, there was much more foul work to be accomplished. I had sworn by my sister's death that none, not one of these monsters should escape my wrath this night, and driven by this violent lust I scant had made the tower and my post at the loophole when the thing returned from its darkling scourge. My heart pounded with apprehension as I watched the creature search around its grave. Into the sea of mist it poured, pausing by the lightning struck tree as it sought and it hunted, bending and turning circles, confused and growing agitated as it could not find its cerements. With splayed arms and invisible flesh it raked at the maelstrom of vapours that roiled around it, but alas for misfortune it did not find its veil. It crouched as a feral cat crouches and as it did this, I offered unto God a silent prayer, and though my limbs would scarcely obey I challenged the monster out there, whatever it might be, to reclaim its shroud. With a grimace I thrust my arm through the aperture and showed the demon that for which it sought, and it looked up and beheld me high in the stronghold, my own shape but a silhouette cast in the glow of the torches. Emitting a furious snarl the monster responded to my contest. That snarl was a ghastly ire that seemed to physically pulse forth from its grey and agitated form. It roared a throbbing palpitation, fierce and shrill, like a staccato musical note played on fleshless bones in hell, harsh and cacophonous, awful and guttural, a scraping howl that thrummed through the air making visible waves as it blasted aside the fog. The beast convulsed obscenely, as if in a perverted ecstasy, and as it quivered and raised its covered visage, it moved toward the tower, gliding below my loophole and my silhouette framed in the Gothic arch, and I thought I glimpsed a slash of ruby red and white, of razor sharp fang and blood, and I trembled where I stood. In dread I turned my head, and peered over the gallery. The shroud squirmed and twisted about in my hand. How it had begun to burn, but not with a fire fuelled by heat, but through an agency of ice, cold, cold, searing ice. The fabric rippled chilly and folded in upon itself, looping about my wrist and frosting my skin. And then, possessed of an unnatural life of its own, it struck upward like a snake to wind about and constrict my throat. With a cry of horror I flung the squirming cerecloth from me and as it fell to the floor at the lip of the stairs it curled about and twitched as does a worm. Below I heard the door crash open violently and from the corner of my eye I saw the monster enter the chapel of the Karnteins. Its frame was spectral, floating and it took to the tower ascent under the steely gaze of its own monstrous ancestors. Around the stairs it climbed, deliberately, slowly, drawing out my agony, it's low, guttural growling reverberating in the well of the edifice. The sound turned my nerves to ice. It was a monstrous sound, the awful growl of a tyger, one of those large and ferocious cats from the exotic Indian continent, but a snarl aurally rearranged and mutated, a thousand times more terrifying. Stepping backwards I cast a furtive glance behind and my shadow proclaimed my terrible and restricted space by spilling up the wall at my back. There was nowhere to run. As I moved I drew my sword from its sheath, the blade sung blue-silver in the pale oonbeams, and as if the shroud knew somehow of my intent I heard the rasping of the cloth and beheld the magical knots I had tied beginning to unravel. I knew no peasant's enchantment could bind the thing now, knew that the beast must reclaim its shroud if it were to rest this night in its black and unnatural bower. How I could feel my heart thudding with anticipation as my fingers turned white around the handle of my blade. It is lore that a vampire can be destroyed only by a stake through the heart or by decapitation and thus I waited the moment, sword in hand. The low animal growling suddenly ceased and a dread silence fell over the tower. The shadows in the stairway loomed and flickered, and by the light of the torches the monster halted upon the final step and began to gather substance and solidity. Looking on mesmerised, I saw the shroud slither over the dark space divide between it and the demon and even as I stared in terror I beheld what might have been an arm reach down. Awed and horribly fascinated I gazed in wonder as the fabric seemed to leap up from the stone into the non-flesh grasp of a non-flesh hand and then to reclaim its part of the fiend's veiled mantle. A peculiar scent abruptly filled the air. It was an intoxicating odour, of perfume, of a soft and lilting fragrant air that clouded my senses. Such a sweet and glorious nidor but so strange and heady that it might have been the breath of the angels had I not perceived that it wafted from out of the grave. It staggered my senses like a drug induces stupor and thus paralysed and held in a dreadful suspense I vain could move a limb. Even as I looked on the beast revealed its true form. The veil that covered its entire body peeled away, slipping to the stone pavements, shed in a glittering rain of silver grey and starlight. Scintilla sparked and flared as the garment fell to the floor, little ribbons of wispy smoke curled up from its filmy gauze mass. The shroud coiled itself tightly together at the vampire's bare feet and my gaze travelled up its figure, along the curve and form of something ethereal, niveous and golden and the vampire looked upon _me_. Here my words must falter because it is a foul stain upon my soul that I looked onto the face of evil and that it was so beautiful. Before me stood a woman of exquisite loveliness and instead of the darkness and the shadows, instead of the devil's fleshly mouldings I saw only skin the colour of cream and the aureate cascade of her hair. Under the hazy, opaque translucence of her gown I saw the shape of her calves, of her thighs and her golden sex, of her hips and her flat belly, of her full and succulent breasts, nipples like berries. How I gasped, it was all that I could do for no words could I articulate, no words could ever suffice. Slowly, gracefully she held out her arms. I could see the blue traces of veins beneath that skin, so delicate and so ivory, veins that now flowed with the blood of the kill, and she stepped forth, stepped up to my frozen body and she smiled. Her eyes were like jewels. I recall they were the colour of amethyst and were lit by a darker flame, a fire of chrome that glinted off the vermillion of her lips. Closer she came, filling the airs with the scent of hyacinth and heliotrope and she raised an arm, gently, softly she touched my cheek. I record it here to my endless shame that as she touched me a rush of heat shot through my frozen flesh. It was a flash of pleasure and of wanting, and as her hand stroked downward and flit over my torso I felt a quickening, a compulsion to hold her and to have her. I saw, or at least some other and detached part of me saw her lift her other arm and begin to push aside my cloak to reveal my neck. As the heavy fabric tugged at its silver clasp and chain the fingers of her other hand brushed against my sex, for it had become hard and insistent against my hose. All this I recall passed in a moment, in a second wherein a galaxy imploded inside my mind and the unthinkable was my lust for a vampire. In her victorious moment I glimpsed my fate, my doom sealed, my death a surety, but as my cloak fell away it revealed the cross I wore. The cruciform brass glinted in the dancing firelight and as she pressed her voluptuous body into mine the rose-tipped bud of her left bosom brushed upon the cross. The vampire gasped, her white skin seared and burned by the holy symbol, a branded welt imprinted into the flesh above her nipple. As if struck by a wave of shock and bursting with a violent and horrible wrath the vampire's eyes sprang wide and were eclipsed by purple flame as her mouth stretched open to reveal the dagger-like fangs. The sweetly perfumed air abruptly became the fetid stink of the wormy grave. With a cry and a hiss all merged into one ghastly sound, and befouling the cross I wore, spraying it with a jet of poisoned spittle that flew from her red lips and tongue, she lunged at my neck. I glimpsed in that horrible visage the twisted metamorphosis from human skin to that of feral beast, the beautiful face altering in a lightning flash into something half the colour of human flesh and half veined membrane and pelt. In that instant, and I must thank the Lord Almighty that he awoke me from that realm of senseless darkness, I regained my senses and grasping her flowing golden locks with clawing fingers I pulled her by the hair from my throat. The female vampire thrashed and fought me, venomous as a snake, attacking and snapping her vicious crimson mouth and serrated teeth, possessed of a strength that almost outdid my own. As she struggled the beast began to unfold, to peel back her coil and to become her true self, the preternatural monster spewed forth from the land of the dead. Slicing the air in a singing, silver sweep my sword flashed upward and in one powerful and blood spattered stroke I cut off her head.

Forty years have passed since the terrible events of that night and I thought that I had closed this sombre tome forever. Yet once again am I called upon to take up my pen with a trembling hand and record further tragedies, for now alas there is more to tell in this ghastly _History of Evil_, the tale of the deadly passions of the Vampire Lovers...

Chapter 2:

Unsuspecting Merrymakers

In which General Spielsdorf holds a celebratory birthday party for his niece, Laura, and how the beautiful guest Marcilla is invited to stay.

Lit like a glittering galaxy, every window streaming lambent, General Spielsdorf's house was aflame with candlelight, its stately rooms rung with the sound of merry cheer. The jingle of gay laughter was filtering through the walls and windows and spilling into the grounds outside as if in defiance of the night and the onset of the changing weather. A chill had begun to blow down from the mountains that lay to the north and heralded the coming shift of season. It had been a pleasant autumn, warm and not uncomfortable, but the leaves were crisping up now and turning sere and dropping from the twig. Winter's kiss was in the wind. People would soon be closing their houses to guests and preparing for the arrival of frosty mornings dusted with snow, but not tonight for tonight was a gala occasion. Just beyond the grand entrance of the General's house where the steps ran between four magnificent Corinthian columns awaited a carriage harnessed with two ivory white horses. Perched in his box with a rug wrapped about his knees, the coach driver pulled his coat tighter about his belly. He had been summoned early, just when he had settled to the delight of a hot brew, to attend the main door and be ready for departure. He had hastily thanked the cook as he downed his hot chocolate and the cook in her generosity had wrapped him some vanilla kipferl which he folded carefully into his coat pocket.

"'Tis precious little from the party table I daresay, but I think General Spielsdorf wouldn't mind, you being so handsome and all!"

They both laughed aloud at the joke. "Not so handsome for that one, I should hope."

I'm sure," said Gerta knowing the implication of her tease and smirking. "Anyway, it will get cold on that road, better to have something sweet to keep your strength up, keep you warm."

The coach driver smiled and blew her a friendly kiss. "I'd rather have you to keep me warm," he had replied jokingly.

"You should be so lucky," she had bantered in return. She threw him an extra biscuit. "Maybe that'll buy me a kiss sometime?" They had both shared a friendly laugh then and the coach driver felt a surge of happiness.

"You are too good to me, Gerta," he told her. "Maybe I shall have the opportunity to come back, soon, yes?"

The cook gave another laugh. The coachman's journey of almost 20 kilometres to the west would take the best part of two hours, perhaps even more and he was not looking forward to the drive. At night the roads were difficult to navigate so he would be forced to travel slowly, and he would be fortunate too if he were to be home before the clock struck midnight. At least the biscuits would make for a welcome snack in the chill of the evening. In the yellow glow of the coach lamp a moth fluttered before its golden wick. Both insect and flame trembled in the breeze, and the breeze reminded the driver that the night would surely get but colder. He suppressed a shiver and glanced impatiently toward the main door. Perhaps it was fortunate that his passengers had chosen to leave now. Conrad, the bewigged attendant, was stationed at the entrance to the house, the buckles on his silver and blue livery glinting as he stretched up onto the tips of his toes. It was good to loosen the tension in his leg muscles, for his calves had begun to cramp and his heels to hurt, and as he gently massaged the back of his neck he realised, with slight discomfort that under the weight of powder and puff, he had developed an annoying itch. The itch was precisely in a spot that the wig restricted his need to scratch and he could not wait to retire and to undress. Briefly he thought of Birgit, a maidservant at the neighbouring Bullheimer estate. Now there was a young woman who could quell any itch. Conrad conjured up her splash of red hair and her fair face, the high and ample breasts and wide hips. He sighed deeply and felt a little thrill pass through his loins, but decided it was best to shelve thoughts of Birgit for the moment. He glanced longingly into the entrance of the glittering ballroom. He had been posted by the door for some hours now, watching the people come and go, ushering them into the house from their gilded carriages. The music, the laughter and the chatter had been a constant filter in his ear, and he mused for a bit, imagining that he himself were dancing in the ballroom with any one of those very pretty girls, rather than standing here as stout and rigid as a plank, posed by the front doors. His fantasy was glorious just for one brief and sweet moment, but he too, like the coach driver wished himself somewhere other, a soft bed and in the warm embrace of a young wench perhaps, but for neither of them was the night yet over. The coachman tipped his hat to the doorman and they both exchanged a courtesy in the candle lighted saffron hued shadows. The wind picked up a gust and rippled about the pilasters, over the balusters and around the quoins and when it met the coach it jingled the tiny silver bells on the harness traces, making one of the horses stamp and snort, blasting from its nostrils a little visible puff of mist in the night air.

Inside the great house a chamber orchestra of violin and piano played a fleet and lively polka. Standing at the perimeter of the glittering ballroom General Spielsdorf smiled as he watched the dancers whirl by to the tempo of the tune. The sparkling light cast by a myriad chandelier candles washed over the polished timber floors and lit the gaudy oils of a dozen mythological friezes in their gilt frames. Pretty girls spun about in dizzying circles of gold and silver brocade, their colourful gowns a kaleidoscope of primrose and pink, swishing against stocking clad ankles, silk flowers and sequins adorning their low cut bodices, felicity in their shining eyes. Handsome young men in uniforms and evening dress partnered them in the dance. The light made the dance floor into a lake of spectrums and reflections, it made a scarlet flame of the General's military regalia, his lapels, epaulettes and buttons twinkling gold, and it made jewels of his sky blue eyes. Although those eyes sparkled there was a look about them that was not so happy, a look of longing perhaps even a hint of sadness that the General was trying to conceal. Though he seemed to have every reason to be happy, as happy as any man could be, for he had a fine house that commanded almost three hundred acres, this great sprawling holding which he had purchased some years ago upon his retirement, a comfortable remuneration from the Austrian army and a very, very pretty niece, Laura. His eyes followed the girl and her dance partner about the room. She dipped and twirled in the embrace of Carl Ebhardt. Ebhardt was a dashingly handsome man of twenty five years, and possessed a smart mind to go with his fine features. Having been appointed manager of the General's estates Ebhardt had an immense responsibility. The young man had come from a poor family but disadvantage had not meant silly, and upon entering the army at the fresh age of fifteen as Corporal under General Spielsdorf, he was soon in his commander's patronage. Ebhardt proved quick to learn and willing to please. In an environment where there were no women Ebhardt's duties soon progressed from polishing the General's sabre to tending needs of a more personal nature. Yet Ebhardt did not seem to mind the older man's attentions and to be truthful, Ebhardt never felt as if he had been coerced into doing something that was not already in his nature. This of course pleased the General and as he spoiled the boy he began to covet his young flesh like a man owns a slave. Yet young Ebhardt was cool enough to manipulate his own needs and he had long ago figured that if the General wanted his love then the General would pay for it. Over the next few years the bond between the two had become both tenacious and enigmatic. While in the service there had been no desperate need to keep their close relationship too guarded a secret, for the General was not the first commander with a sexual appetite for young men and neither would he be the last, but the relationship became predicated on something other that was not shared by either. Ebhardt had grown somewhat steely about the heart. As his body developed and his face grew more beautiful, so did the desire to be free of this lusts invisible chains and become more self sufficient. He had some money saved but not enough to purchase a farm or a business, for his military wage was extremely minimal and he was sceptical of a world that might judge too harshly if it discovered his past. Ebhardt had been pondering his options and had yet to decide what he needed to do, and then the General had retired. It had all been quite sudden and the reasons the man gave were of a personal nature. Carl had asked the General about his plans and the General had told him that he was retiring to his large country estate in the Duchy of Stiria. He had then implored the young man to come with him, but Carl had baulked at the idea. It was too soon for such a thing to happen just as yet, and he didn't really want to commit to anything long term unless all other options were exhausted. The General went away disappointed, for he said there were reasons that he must go, reasons that he had not anticipated but reasons and responsibilities that nonetheless could not be avoided. In any case perhaps it was time to hang up his sword and live the quiet life. Despite the General's departure the young man had continued on in the service, but a desire to be promoted proved elusive and it had become plainly obvious to Ebhardt that money talked, not ability. He thought he could prove worthy of higher rank, but Lieutenant was as high as he could climb, and unlike Ebhardt, the ranking officers above him were all the sons of money. Since the General had retired he no longer had the man's support or his influence. Ebhardt's career had thus stalled to a grinding halt. Eventually, after much pleading via five years of correspondence on the General's behalf, he had accepted the General's offer to manage his mentor's vast estates. Carl still skated on uncertain ground, ambivalent in his feelings and yoked by having limited financial opportunities outside of the General's interests. In frustration that the world was forsaking him and that his years in the armed forces had amounted to very little, Ebhardt had made the only decision he thought that might work in his favour, and that was to pack up his worldly things and throw his lot in with his former patron. It did not take long before he adapted to a new life in pastoral Stiria, for he brought to his new position excellent practicality and was of an adept prowess for the demands of strenuous physical ability. The General was fond of Ebhardt and treated him like a squire, but a squire nonetheless who of course must fall into the old routine. For Ebhardt that hardly seemed of consolation, and the General had, if anything, grown softer and perhaps more dependant. The bond between the two was not simply a trading of favours for monetary gain, but Ebhardt did not feel quite so strongly about his mentor and because of this there had developed a peculiar but unavoidably growing distrust. If it were fidelity the General wanted then that was there to a certain degree, but Ebhardt had begun drifting away when the General's niece became part of the bigger picture. It was no secret that Laura had fallen in love with Ebhardt, had become besotted with the young man with the perfectly chiselled Roman nose and wavy jet black hair, and it was no secret that Ebhardt returned the pretty girl's amative sentiment. This piqued the General because he had not counted on such a thing happening. In the fairy tale one was supposed to live happily ever after. He put aside the fact that he had changed the tales moral stance somewhat, but who was really to judge when one was in love? General Spielsdorf did not feel comfortable or safe with the thought of promoting the relationship between the two, but he was caught in a bind and he did not want to lose Ebhardt from his side. What would it take to compel Ebhardt permanently to his graces, marriage to his niece? That seemed foolish and yet very likely at this juncture although it also presented a few deeper problems that made the General want to question Ebhardt's motives. His first instinct was envy and he told himself that he would refuse the union, but on those nights when the world was quiet and Ebhardt's smooth ivory skin was pressed against his own and they lay together under the lamp of a sterling moon, well, that was when both the flesh and resolve weakened. Ebhardt did not need to speak aloud the words that he would stay with the General until the day the General died, for that was a contract that both knew could never be committed to paper. With the advent of the General's age came the fact that his own death might be a short ten years hence. If he did die then he died without issue and his estates would legally pass on to his niece. Marriage to the girl seemed less than the dread disaster it might have appeared under such a circumstance, and who was to say that throughout the anxieties and jealousies that would arise, that something of the intensity of love could not be made manifest? Had not Laura chosen a suitor who was capable in the way of the world and who made the General happy? That surely was a sturdy block from which to begin, because it kept Ebhardt close and made the young man's future prospects all the more brighter. Still, it made Ebhardt's love for the young woman duplicitous and somehow dangerous. Yet this was half of the appeal, the skidding along the thin ice that proved too exciting to relinquish. Still, on the other hand, the General knew that should anything ever happen to him Laura would be well cared for and she would live a comfortable if rather estranged life. Though upon this point, the thought conjured up another, a thought that was almost unwelcome on this special night. Try as he might, the General could not stem the rather distracting notion that accompanied all this difficult truth. Laura was his ward and she was a poignant reminder of her lovely mother and her dear father, the General's younger brother, Helmut. Both Helmut and his good wife had died tragically five years before in Bern, victims of a lethal but undetermined fever. Because of this the General had retired from the army to care for his brother's child. When young Carl had accepted the General's invitation to attend his Stirian holdings, Laura had been a slender girl one month shy of her fifteenth birthday and life in a great house in the isolated provinces was often solitary and friendless. Ebhardt's arrival seemed to have made all the difference in her demeanour, although the lack of honesty beneath the surface, that Ebhardt shared the General's bed was a secret betrayal that even naïve Laura did not appear to suspect. But General Spielsdorf reasoned that such was a small sacrifice to pay if it meant holding onto the object of desire. Most certainly he provided for Laura's welfare and education, and most certainly he gave her love, a love she in return had grown to reciprocate and responded to as if the circumstances of her life had never been any different. Laura was radiant and as pretty as a picture, with ruddy cheeks, her lips a perfect bow, her hair a cascade of yellow silk and the envy of all the girls. And the greatest envy of all was that tonight she had the most beautiful young man in the room on her arm. Even though in her girlish immaturity she did not know it was a bonding wrought of a lie. Tonight though was Laura's nineteenth birthday, and perhaps womanhood was upon her and she would soon be of age, but there was no time in her effervescent present to be unhappy or to suspect any impropriety from either uncle or lover. Soon enough Laura would be engaged to Ebhardt and soon enough they would be married. When this happened Laura would pursue her own life. And this was what troubled the General. He had no guarantee that the two would remain and continue on in his house. It was this awful possibility that the two young people would move to another province, to another state or another country, perhaps as one as close as Liechtenstein or one as far away as England and that made the General anxious. Perhaps he had overplayed his cards and misunderstood Ebhardt completely. But how was one to think when the stroke of lust was upon your skin, upon your lips, upon your thigh? When Ebhardt kissed him in the shadows his entire mind seemed to come undone, and when Ebhardt took him in the stables the stars seemed to burst. The whole relationship had now tipped out of kilter. Once the General had been the initiate, gentle and caring in his needs, but rarely aggressive. He could recall quite brightly the very first time he had taken Carl to his bed. The young man had not been shocked and neither did he protest. He had let the older man kiss him, touch him and he had returned the kisses and the touch with an ardent fervour and the zeal of splendid youth. It had been both their lusts that proved passionate, when Ebhardt caught the General's eye his look spoke a thousand words and when the General caught Ebhardt's the world cracked open. It was Ebhardt who often grasped his mentor by the arm and pulled him aside, into the dimmer recesses or into the woods, there to kiss and to stroke and to penetrate the burning flesh. It was the General who thrust into Ebhardt in the stables or the boiler room, who unbuttoned his coat and untied the laces of his shirt. And it was Ebhardt who tore off the General's clothes and covered the General's body with the vivid heat of his own flesh. With his ruddy and perfect mouth that closed warmly about the hardened length of the General's sex Carl's velvet lips would slide up and down the older man's shaft in the most agonising of slow volition. On those days when the two went riding they would sometimes swim in the lake and the water would glisten on Ebhardt's skin like jewels, like diamonds, and the General would press his quivering lips to the young man's chest and slack one thirst while he fed the other. And when Ebhardt was inside him, when his hardness rode back and forth the General was lost completely, on fire like the sun, consumed in the handsome young man's corona and burned all the way to his core with the most divine of fires.

No, the General did not like entertaining the possibility that the young man might ever leave. That meant that all would be undone and the General would be alone, all his efforts to secure his heart's desire would come to nothing. He did not want to be alone in his big house with only his housekeeper for company. There unto that fact was the General caught in his own personal tragedy and he deliberated the twisted truth and did not like it. He did not want to think about being alone, about losing both surrogate son, lover and daughter, not now, that would spoil everything, and Laura _was_ practically his own daughter. Life sometimes was so very complicated when you gave into your heart. With a sigh and the shadow of a tired smile General Spielsdorf put aside the threat of a cheerless heart if only just for a moment. He needed to think about this soon, but tonight was not the night. Had they been present this evening, Laura's parents would have been proud of the love and devotion the General had given the girl and they would have marvelled at the beauty they had brought into the world. That justified Laura's life, at least in part, because really, had she ever known anything other than happiness these past few years? For the while the two of them might be able to share Ebhardt. It seemed possible but highly unlikely.

Guests from many neighbouring houses and visitors from far flung countries had come tonight to celebrate, to dance and be joyous, to drink sweet punch and eat sweet cake and to wish Laura a happy birthday. There was a man in a turban and a woman in a sari and they talked in a most musical accent about the land of India and everyone listened in attendance and all were greatly impressed. Amid the laughter the General drifted along the length of his moorings, but his concerns were not what mattered, what really mattered tonight was that everyone be happy, for after all, birthdays came only once a year.

Laura and Carl turned and both smiled to the General as they whirled by. Tonight Laura was radiant, her blue eyes sparkling and alive. Every time Carl brushed against her dress of lavender silk his heart skipped a beat. He didn't really understand this feeling, for he had oft spent the night in the embrace of an older man. This was something new, the allure of female flesh. It made him think that after all these years he had been somehow living a lie and was now being mercenary in his actions. The General still thought of his niece as a prepubescent child and hardly as an adult woman, and Carl sometimes found himself trapped in his mentor's sensibility. Laura was still a child to them but in reality that was obviously not the truth. Yet she was so very pretty and just as vivacious and Carl was drawn to her closer and closer as the time passed, as the past four years were eclipsed. Visions of the child were being replaced by visions of the sexually mature young woman. It was something he could not help, and yet as the relationship blossomed so did the idea that this was his fate. Kismet was a strange thing, it oft presented opportunities that were never there before, and in this it was not that Carl felt nothing for the girl, on the contrary, she quite excited him and in some strange way he might even be falling in love. The land of her skin was a new domain to explore, one he looked forward to, but he could never confess to the General these emotions, the tangle would have become even more knotted and besides, both loves had their advantages. With shimmering light glinting from her diamond and pearl tiara, with her blond locks and her fresh, perfumed skin and her soft body held tight in his embrace, Carl thought quite proudly that he could justifiably have the best of both worlds and that the life of the disfavoured and destitute could be buried forever. General Spielsdorf blinked as they passed, capturing the frame of their glamour in his mind's eye. The couple receded and a dozen others whirled by and the General glanced toward the ballroom door. There he saw a pretty young woman in a pale saffron and lace dress hurrying from the cloakroom, tying a pale green travelling cloak in a hasty knot about her slender throat. Laura and Carl, approaching again in their loop stopped dancing and Laura smiled sweetly, letting go of his hand. He looked ever so disappointed, his lips parting slightly as if to protest their temporary division. "Forgive me" her expression seemed to say as she drew away from him, turning and picking up her skirts and walking swiftly to join her uncle on the steps. They came up to a lovely young woman and a middle aged man who had donned a silver grey travelling coat.

Miss Emma," began General Spielsdorf, "do you have to leave us so soon?"

The girl's cheeks dimpled as she smiled and apologised. "I'm afraid so."

The General reached forward and took her slim hand, a hand almost as white as the gloves he wore and kissed it gently.

"Never mind," he said, turning to Laura, and his words were as much a reassurance to her as they were for Emma, "there will be another time."

The middle aged man standing beside the girl shook General Spielsdorf's hand.

"Mr. Morton," said the older man, "so sorry that you have to go."

"General," replied Morton in his very English accent, adjusting the white silk cravat about his throat, "it has been a delightful party."

"So glad that you have enjoyed it."

Emma Morton beamed happily and kissed Laura on the cheek. "Thank you Laura, it was a lovely party, and…" Pausing, with the light making emerald brilliants in her own pretty tiara, looking like the princess of a fairy tale who must leave the ball and her prince before the stroke of midnight, she lowered her voice to a whisper. The corners of her lovely cupid's mouth drew up in an arc. "I think Carl's very handsome." From the moment she had cast her eye on Ebhardt Emma Morton had felt a little twinge of envy pull at her heart. He had aroused a secret longing that she dared not admit, especially not to her friend Laura and she felt as much guilt because it had been so sudden. The young man had thick and wavy curls of black hair, a handsome face and a strong muscular body. Emma told herself that it was no sin to look, but it brought something else into her mind that she had rather not think about, a novel that she had read and could not forget. But that was her secret and if the thought of having read a forbidden book now made her blush then she was looking upon the pretty face of her best friend and she was indeed blushing too. Laura's cheeks had turned a pale shade of cherry. The girl glanced at her uncle but the General did not notice. She had had so little time this day to tell Emma all the details about her romance, how she had loved Carl for such a long time and how that love had never been truly possible until now. It was a cruel misfortune that Emma lived so many kilometres away and that they did not see each other very often.

"Oh, must you go Emma," Laura protested weakly, "it's so early!'

"We have a long journey home." Morton interjected gently, turning to the General's niece and smiling. He understood perfectly the pretty girl's disappointment, and his own daughter's for that matter, but it could not be helped. "Very happy birthday," he said by way of consolation, and as he spoke he leaned forward, taking Laura's hand in his and kissing it as he bowed. "And remember, you're coming to stay with Emma very soon."

Morton was an Englishman expatriate and astute in the ways of finance. British born and bred he had made something of a fortune by investing in the maritime trade, importing goods and spices from distant Asia and Northeast Africa and bartering them throughout Europe. With the profits from this traffic and with his affluence increasing by way of judicious business contacts in Vienna, Morton had purchased a large manor house in the Stirian Duchy but the circumstances did not simply involve a move to another country but a personal tragedy. Morton's wife had deceased a few months before the relocation from his beloved northern England. His only daughter, Emma, was stricken with an understandable grief, but the time for mourning had passed now and the world still went on. The residence he had purchased, though spacious, was but a fraction of the size of General Spielsdorf's expansive holdings, but it was large enough for large rooms to soon swell with a profound emptiness, the emptiness that followed the loss of the dear wife and mother. It was hardly the place for a young woman to exist without motherly love or the society of others her own age. Mr. Morton in an attempt to ease the transition and to keep Emma's mind from becoming morbid had recently engaged a Governess for Emma's tuition. Mademoiselle Perrodon, who was barely ten years' Emma's senior, could not quite fill the role of mother. She had been friendly at first, engaging Emma in tales of her own town in rural France where they grew excellent wine and made clothing, and although Emma tried to reciprocate she found herself slipping into apathy. Mademoiselle, sensing the gap between them widening, had begun to form a thinly concealed attitude of judgment against her charge, one that thought Emma simpered and malingered and was very much aware that everyone doted upon her. She understood Emma's loss but she also understood that Emma was young and pretty and that being young and pretty meant you might have better prospects in the world. This idea seemed unfair in the light of Emma's circumstances, but Emma sensed the draft of emotional coldness that had blown into Mademoiselles core and although she half understood that chill, it only made her more inclined to be uncooperative. For a short while it had all appeared as if things had been progressing well for Emma, who seemed to adjust slowly with both loss of mother and home, and living in a big house in the romantic heart of Europe promised a quiet life in which to recuperate from grief. In the beginning it was everything she told herself it could be; an adventure and a new life, with dreamlike notions of a fairy tale to wish her days away and take her mind from brooding over the death of her mother. But Stiria only saw the pretty girl becoming a prisoner to isolation and as solitary in her existence as is a single rose in a crystal vase. Emma realised this fact quite quickly, and she saw the same patriarchal process dictating Mademoiselle Perrodon's existence too, but there was nothing she could do to change the way of the world. To close that world down she took to walking and riding in the forests abounding her father's land, drifting in a landscape of green woods and blue skies that were sadly held in the embrace of grey days. After awhile, with only the Governess and the house servants for company and her father absent for many weeks on end, Emma had finally begun to pine again for her home forsaken. Emma became fretful and lonely and this progressed rapidly into a state of unspoken rebellion. She refused to eat very much and ignored her education. It was dull and useless reading dry tracts of unenlivened boredom. She did not enjoy scouring Sarah Austin's translations from the Austrian into English because it meant siphoning away any shred of enjoyment that could be had in what was quickly becoming a very depressing existence. She preferred to be read to rather than to read herself, a childish leftover wish fulfilment from her maternal loss no doubt, and she baulked at learning the coarse German dialect which made it difficult for her to communicate with the household. She spent most of her days opening but hardly reading romance novels by the likes of Joan Aiken and Valerie Anand and walking in the park.

One day some boxes of goods from England. They were filled with exotic materials and teas and spices, curios and books. From the packing straw Emma had pulled an extraordinarily intricate ivory carving. It was of a boat, quite large, over a foot long, all white and pristine, sculptured with the most amazing filigree work. Why, there were even miniature ladies on the upper deck, and they were playing tiny musical instruments and beckoning with tiny ivory hands. Emma had no idea that she looked upon a Cantonese Pleasure Barge. To her innocent eye it was so lovely, and as she gazed upon it for a long moment she was transported to the far eastern land of China, dressed in silk and waving from that gleaming, polished boat deck. With a little sigh she placed the barge on the floor at her knees and rummaging deeper into the crate Emma had found another treasure, a book that bore no author's moniker. Its title _"__The Lustful Turk, or Lascivious Scenes from a Harem__"___seemed to deliberate, rather sensationally, upon erotic encounters and of loves that were beyond Emma's sensitive, youthful comprehension. Now here was something different, something Emma instinctively understood was forbidden. Opening the volume the first paragraph read:

"…Scenes in the Harem of an Eastern Potentate faithfully and vividly depicting in a series of letters from a young and beautiful English lady to her friend in England the full particulars of her ravishment and of her complete abandonment to all the salacious tastes of the Turks…_"_

Emma's curiosity was at once overwhelmed and she had given the inside pages a quick glance and her eyes had opened so wide that she thought they would pop from her head. Objectionable words almost leapt off the page, descriptions of the male member and secret female places. Emma had tucked the book into the folds of her dress with a secret vow to pursue its contents at a more private convenience. When she did get to read it she was both appalled and enthralled. The tome contained vivid descriptions of fornication and connexion of a most sinful nature; of the seduction of a travelling English girl called Emily by pirates, who was deposited in a slave market and harem. The acts poor Emily was made to perform were most disgusting, and one in particular in which the nasty Ali thrust his member into her behind was as vulgar and sensational as nothing Emma Morton could ever have imagined. That the seduction was aligned with submission and whipping, themes that were strange and forbidden, of one woman's amorous rape and ultimate desire for an exotic Oriental, was positively scandalous. The ensuing pages were just as colourful as they were unnatural and Emma Morton had been shocked by a litany of acts of shameless eroticism. The discovery of this book had changed Emma's perspective in that the body might find no limit in its search for gratification, even to the horrible extreme of genital mutilation, a deed she had never even imagined anyone could endure. Surely the tale had been included in Mr. Morton's shipment by mistake for it did not seem that it was fit for any respectable publication. Worse, there were illustrations that made poor innocent Emma blush. The depictions of intense passion played out as base desires, illustrated as intimately compromising positions, and those etchings only further ensured her young mind could only half distinguish between what was love and what was lust. No doubt it had been commissioned for a private readership; perhaps a Hellfire Club or fetish institution in which common decency was not counted upon. Of course there was always the notion that her father had full knowledge of the book and had hoped to intercept its arrival before the contents of the crate were distributed into his household. But how could that be true? That thought horrified the young woman even more. No, it had to have been an error, it was too debauched and foul to think of her kind and gentle father being entertained by such corrupt literature! Yet such was _"The Lustful Turk's"_ temptation, for its litany of indecent and gross acts of carnality were indeed explicit and shocking, both in its description and its coarse language. Emma had never even heard such words before and reading them, pronouncing them aloud, well, that was tantamount to sinning. If her father were to gain knowledge of the thing Emma did not know for certain what his reaction would be. Emma's childhood innocence was at that moment shocked into reality and all in the passing of one sunny morning. She had nevertheless hidden the book in a secret place behind the dresser on the chance that it might be discovered and read by Mademoiselle Perrodon, one of the maids or even the butler Mr. Renton. And because Mademoiselle Perrodon spoke German and French fluently she would have had no difficulty translating the paragraphs that Emma could not. What would she think or what would she do!

One afternoon, not long after this incident, when walking with Mademoiselle Perrodon by a small lake by the great oak tree not far from the house, Emma had decided to ask of her Governess about the nature of sex. How she was to broach this subject with tact she did not know, but _"__The Lustful Turk, or Lascivious Scenes from a Harem__"___had awoken a deep sense of curiosity that she knew her father could never explain. Why, he didn't even realise that she was now a young woman and had long ago ceased to be a little girl. As Emma pondered the appropriate words to begin her query the afternoon sun slit a scarlet vein and spilled molten fire into the waters of the lake. The topmost turrets of the house became a fiery reflection in the rheum; and from a window Emma imagined she fleetingly saw her dear mother falling, as if diving into the waters and drowning in a ghastly wash of blood. The vision had been positively horrific, inspired no less of guilt and by the heady concoction of questionable literature she had been reading and the mysteriously tragic circumstances of her mother's demise. Suicide was not a pretty word, and the truth of Mrs. Morton's death was something that was never resolved, nor could its effect on young Emma's mind be erased. The vision had been too much and Emma had cried for days and wished only to return to her Cumberland birthplace, there where she had taken similar walks with her deceased parent and known at least an idea of happiness. Her immature mind knew not the circumstances of her mother's taking of her life, it was too difficult a pain to deal with and now Emma Morton was sadly the possessor of a heart filled with misery. What made things worse was the very fact that she no longer felt like a child, but had become aware of her own body and of the allure of the flesh. Mixed up with this new awakening came the unwanted and irrational fear of guilt. Yet the truth was that Emma was stainless and a virgin and that she knew positively nothing of her own biological catalyst. On the verge of a melancholic onset Emma had thrown herself upon the Governess and pled that the woman must speak to her father so as to send her back to England. As fate would have it, the next day, arriving by the morning post, a chance invitation from the General Spielsdorf who lived twenty kilometres to the south had led to an introduction to the gentleman's niece, Laura. Since Laura had lost her mother many years before, the two girls shared each a similar sympathy and a genuine and close friendship had resulted in the meeting. It had been enough to inspire in Emma a new desire for living and her demeanour soon improved with the prospects of the new friendship. After this party Laura would visit Emma. And yes indeed, there would be so much more to talk about.

Emma's smile dimpled her cheeks and she almost beamed, nodding and half suppressing a positive gasp of joy.

"I'm looking forward to it Mr. Morton," returned Laura, grasping Emma's hand in her own clasp and smiling just as broadly. The only thing that would not be good would be that she should miss her beau for the duration of her visit.

"General," said Morton by way of goodbye and he intimated to his daughter that the time had come to depart.

"Auf weidersehen" returned the General, bowing in respect as he spoke.

"Goodbye," said Emma, reluctant to go, shrugging the drape of her travelling cloak over her shoulders and walking with her father towards the door. She did not look back. General Spielsdorf nodded his final farewell and as Laura watched them go she gave a little wave, her hand rising to the pretty silken rose nestled in her bosom, but Emma did not see. She was sad that her friend had departed, just when the party had only begun, but Ebhardt was still here, watching patiently from the edge of the dance floor, waiting and smiling for her to rejoin him. Quickly Laura ran down the steps and back into his arms, but even as they took fleet step the music ceased and the dance was over. Breaking into laughter Laura curtsied and Carl bowed and they both applauded each other.

From their coach window Emma Morton watched General Spielsdorf's great house retreat into the shadows. She regretted that she had barely had a day alone with Laura and that now it would be hours before she slept in her own bed, weeks even before Laura came to stay. Though she told herself she would dream sweet dreams this night and dream them way beyond the dawn, Emma fantasised that she would have a young man in her dreams, just like Ebhardt, and he would kiss her and spoil her and love her until death. As the carriage swayed and rocked along its way the night without grew chillier, wisps of breath streamed from the horse's nostrils, the spokes whirled and the lamps flickered. The coach driver, glad to be on his journey did not goad his team, but instead kept a steady pace, heading west, knowing that at this hour care needed to be taken on the road for the sun would not rise at their backs for some hours yet. The coachman hoped to be home long before the sun rose. From out of the dark a handsome coach pulled by two black steeds sped recklessly toward them on the road, moving toward the direction of General Spielsdorf's house, its lamps aureate and dancing in the night. The coach driver tipped his hat to the other coachman as he went by but no such courtesy was returned. It passed them and disappeared in a cloud of black dust. Inside the Morton coach Emma slipped down into blissful sleep, her pretty head upon a velvet cushion, lulled by the revolution of the wheels and the steady clopping of hooves, and as she slept her father watched over, looking at her intently and his eyes were glittering darkly.

The doorman sprang quickly down the marble stair to greet the carriage as it drove up the raked way to the house entrance. He positioned himself at attention and held aloft a lighted lamp indicating to the driver the spot that he should rein his horses to a halt. The coach was manned by a postillion and two footmen along with the driver, and as it pulled to a stop an ostler from the stables came forward and took the harness, stroking one of the steed's glittering black manes as he did so. The horses remained stock still, their breath white mist in the air. Conrad, General Spielsdorf's doorman, came forward with his lamp and before its gilded beam the shadows slid upon the blue dark surface of the coach window, illuminating a solid shape moving behind the glass. A footman at the rear jumped down and came around to the side of the carriage, unfolding the steps quickly and opening the door. Just as quickly he stepped aside and bowed very low. Once the door was open a figure emerged from the conveyance, a figure draped from head to toe in jet, entirely covered so that not one feature was made distinct. This figure was followed by another in a mantle of midnight blue, and led by the doorman they proceeded inside.

In the ballroom the music had momentarily ceased and that was only because a violin had snapped a string and the player was busy fitting another. The piano player was shuffling through his sheet music, looking for something a little subdued after the lively trip of the previous tune and as he rifled he glanced up. Across the vast room he saw a new arrival. The vision he beheld was of a mature but very handsome woman who was dressed in black, and from bosom to hem, running in two vines down the middle of her gown a golden leaf pattern glittered on golden woven stem. In her tightly bound black locks was pinned a white gardenia of hand sewn silk. The woman looked about the room, her glance sweeping the auditorium and silencing everyone in its wake. She raised a slim hand to her shoulder and tilted her head. All tongues in the room had stopped their social chatting and all eyes were now fixed upon the new guest. But this moment was only fleeting, for those same eyes were suddenly diverted away from the woman in black and directed upon a younger woman. This girl had abruptly stepped from behind the other, from out of the shadow of her silhouette, to stand at her side. The piano player cleared his throat and the double bass player stretched up to cast his eyes over the violin player's shoulder, his look spearing across the partying crowd. A second violinist tapped his bow upon the music stand of the first. Finishing the repair to his string the man looked up and his gaze, like the gaze of everyone else in that room fixed itself upon a young woman dressed in scarlet. This young woman could have been no older than twenty three or twenty four and she was of medium height although she stood tall and proud like someone of regal bearing. The gown's low cut bosom was far more revealing than any dress worn by any girl in the room and it accentuated quite boldly the complete curve of both form and breasts. The shadow of rosy nipples could be glimpsed beneath the sheer fabric, even from across the room. The vision of both dress and flesh made the throat of every man in that room, young or old, run dry and rendered the women speechless through the sheer audacity of the spectacle. Yet the girl held her head high and seemed not to notice the mutters of disapproval and the wave of shock that rippled through the guests. The red of that dress was so intense that it appeared she stood in a pillar of flame, and the same fire licked the jewels in the slender crown she wore in her flowing auburn hair and threw scintillates through her thick auburn locks. The fire also glimmered and flared in the great ruby that nestled between those high and lovely breasts. It was a stone in which burned the light of the Großer Wagen, unearthly and celestial and glowing eternal. The young woman's skin glowed too, the colour of a translucent pearl, and her lips were full and glistened moistly with a deep rose sheen; her eyes dazzled blue like sapphires.

Three young men stood at the far side of the ballroom, all held in friendly conversation with General Spielsdorf. Two of them were attired in the military insignia of the rank of corporal and the General could not but help think how handsome they looked with their fresh young faces cleanly shaved, their eyes bright, their buckles and medals glinting like golden stars. One of the youths, young Kurt, was the son of the local innkeeper, Kurt the elder. Young Kurt's father had saved and invested for many years that the young man might do well from a military career. The General had no interest in the elder Kurt's affairs and instead enquired of the youths the latest news and developments within the Service. They had been speaking of the political clime in France and the threat of revolution. It was already beginning to become a terrible and bloody business that could only affect the many far and wide, especially the nobility and the gentry. The ugliness of it all, the horror and the bloodshed of war was hardly an unfamiliar theme for General Spielsdorf, but what concerned him most was that the bloodshed would spill over into Germany. His anxieties were not ill founded, for Germany was no friend of France, but should the carnage erupt and infiltrate into Stiria and touch its black hand upon their lives, then he should be prepared for the calamity to come. This caused the General an involuntary shudder, but he knew without a doubt that the rumours of this proposed uprising contained the very real bones of truth and should they become fact then it would be savage and brutal. The land of unreason knew not compromise and the hatred would have considerable and detrimental consequences in all countries if a solution could not be found quickly. Of course the terror was growing in Paris, but that city was at the heart of a country that was not so far away and the General's fears were far from misplaced. He did not like Paris, its politics and its filth disagreed with the HIM, and he had visited there a number of times, but that was forty years ago and he was younger then. Memories of the city were memories of opulence and decadence, of gilded palaces with halls spattered in excrement, of prostitutes and thieves and people who lived rude, poor desperate and artificial lives. Paris could scarcely have changed much in the intervening years and the General hoped that the rising storm when it did break contained itself to that capital that he held in very little esteem. Tonight though, he reminded himself, he should leave military matters and politics to the behest of others. They were not the ideal subject of a young woman's birthday party. For one thing, he was retired and he had other concerns much closer to home. As he listened attentively to the details of the young men's eager report the General thus faced away from the new arrivals. The third young man, a handsome fellow in green velvet stood off to the General's right. He was bored with listening to the latest military news and had little interest in matters of war and battle. He preferred his engagements to be with those of the fairer sex and he had some time ago learned that his boyish charms and a flattering tongue were the best of all weapons when it came to matters of love. In the moment that he glanced away from his fellow company his eye fell upon the girl in crimson. The young man almost gasped and it was all he could do not to stare. When his companions both looked up all three of them found their tongues stilled and could no longer speak. It was the young man on the right who broke the frozen tableau with a broad smile, and the General, perceiving an electric change in the atmosphere lowered a crystal goblet from his lips and turned around. Across the room, posed below a towering Mengus reproduction, _Perseus and Andromeda_, a detail that dominated the ballroom entrance, the two women stood looking at General Spielsdorf. In any other circumstance the painting should have dwarfed and engulfed the two women in its spectacle, but the eye was not held by the panoramic grandeur of the exaggerated mythological scene but rather by their extreme and startling physicality. Beautiful Andromeda, chained to the rock in the ether above their heads paled in comparison.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," said the General, quickly swallowing the last of his wine then handing his glass to a servant holding a gadrooned silver tray. All the young men were too busy staring that they failed to respond. Gracefully the General strode across the room to greet his new guests, the older woman opening her arms wide as he approached, her teeth shining like pearls as she smiled. The General took her hand.

"My dear Countess," he said, "I am honoured."

Bowing forward he kissed her hand.

"So charming of you to invite us," the Countess replied, taking back her hand and placing it upon her bosom where it fluttered like a pale butterfly above her heart. Light danced from the diamond droplets depending from her ears, and as she smiled she blinked slowly, turning slightly to the girl at her side. "May I present my…" the Countess paused for the briefest of moments, placing an unspoken emphasis upon her words before continuing, "daughter, Marcilla?"

Marcilla lowered her long black eyelashes and her red velvet lips pulled back in a faint smile as she gently nodded. The girl's understated expression was enough to make General Spielsdorf click his heels together and stand to attention, but there was something else in that expression too, something that he did not like.

"Who's that?" The young man in the green coat asked of his two companions but only the young soldier in the middle made scant reply, his words automatically leaving his lips while his eyes continued to devour the vision of beauty on the other side of the ballroom.

"They've just moved in to the place about five kilometres away. You know, where the old Baroness used to live."

Asked the second: "The Baroness Meister?"

"That's the one." Replied the first.

Everyone gave a look of surprise. That place had a rather colourful reputation attached to it, a reputation that had grown up over the years along with the thorns and the weeds. Perhaps these new bloods who now resided there would bring the house back to life and perhaps there would be more invitations to gala balls within its rooms, dances for young men to attend and new friendships with beautiful young ladies to pursue. The young man in green certainly hoped for one particular friendship and had eyes for only one particular lady. In his mind's eye is wasn't simply a kiss he coveted, but the pulchritudinous excitement of having that young woman's lips upon his stiff member. He could feel his sex hardening up at the thought and he quickly checked his coat front to assure that it was buttoned up all the way down. Happy that he was not presenting obviously, and flashing his best smile, he stood up tall and puffed up his esteem like a strutting peacock. Reaching up he straightened his lapels and lowering his voice a further octave as he preened he spoke quickly even as he moved away. "Well," he told his fellows, "we must love our neighbours, Kurt."

Without further ado he was briskly gone from their company and almost sprinted across the room.

Marcilla looked upon the General and she gave a strange smile, and the General felt his heart suddenly tripping. He felt like a child caught out telling an untruth and it was most uncomfortable. In that cobalt glance there was understatement and it drew up a secret line between the military man and the lovely young Countess. General Spielsdorf shook the feeling off by returning his attention to the girl's mother.

"Will you dance?" asked the General, offering his arm to the Countess.

"Oh, enchanted," she replied and taking him by the hand he led her away from the beautiful nymph in scarlet and down the steps onto the glittering ballroom floor. The little orchestra struck up a new tune. The General was glad to set a space between the girl dressed in red and him, and he couldn't quite figure the notion why. And she kept looking at him and smiling an enigmatic smile that was most disturbing. The General swept the older woman into the waltz and turned his back on the Countess' daughter. Yet even in that motion he felt as if the girl's sight were boring a hole into the back of his head. As the party guests began to find their voices again a gaggle of young men had swarmed about the girl in the red dress. The lad in the green coat stepped up and claimed his prize, all the other young men shook their heads in disappointment and defeat and dispersed with little but hope in their hearts that their turn to dance with the beautiful new guest would come soon. Risking a quick glance back in Marcilla's direction the General was relieved to notice that her attention had been diverted from his person, that she was now the interest of a pretty young boy, and he gave a thankful sigh.

As the dancers whirled to a sedate waltz Carl and Laura pressed each other close and then separated to arm's length. Laura twirled and moved in close to her beau again.

"Carl," whispered Laura as she drew her sweet lips up to his handsome cheek, "I do love you."

A wave of incomprehension passed over Ebhardt's face and he feigned an inscrutable smile. Despite his secrets, Carl's growing desire for Laura could not help but find him flattered by the remark. She liked to hear him say it aloud, though he seemed rather stoic when pressed upon the subject of declaration. The thought of openly confessing his love was a tricky one and although it was difficult to verbally reciprocate it also made him strangely excited. He had never felt this way before, this growing intensity and emotion for a woman; it was all a very new world. Laura now looked directly into his eyes and he knew immediately that her words possessed an altogether different meaning.

"What?" Carl questioned, slightly confused. Of course he knew that Laura loved him, but she didn't understand the game and she would never, must never know. There was no doubt to be entertained upon that fact. Of course she was teasing or else her words were a silly contradiction to the truth. He looked into her pretty face and he saw that her eyes were elsewhere, glancing over his shoulder as they danced. Swinging her around Carl too saw just what it was that had taken Laura's attention, or rather who.

"Every other young man in the room is staring at that girl over there," she told him, not taking her eyes from Marcilla. "All, except you."

Carl's lips gave an involuntary twitch and he turned and focused his attention upon the beautiful stranger who was indeed looking in their direction. Marcilla's gaze was intent, unwavering and under its watch it made Laura feel quite strange, and perplexingly envious.

"I do believe she'd like to take you away from me," said Laura, hoping not to sound jealous of the girl's obvious physical charms. "She keeps staring at you."

The dancers spun through another revolution and then another, a palette of colours splashed upon the ballroom floor that was now astir with the most intense shade of scarlet fire. Everyone else within a foot of that flame fell mercilessly into cinders and expired. Ebhardt risked another look in Marcilla's direction. The girl was incredibly beautiful. He beheld the pouting ruby lips and the eyes of sapphire; he saw the line and curve of the most voluptuous body he had ever seen, and all in its perfect symmetry. And he noted something else too, something that Laura did not. Carl pulled Laura tighter, closer, as if to shield rather than hold her, as if enviously aware of something Laura blissfully did not see.

"Nonsense," he remarked as he spun Laura dizzyingly to the opposite end of the ballroom, turning their backs to Marcilla. "She's looking at you."

Precisely on the stroke of eight o'clock a black stallion with flashing silver hooves, ridden by a figure wrapped in black galloped along the carriage road that led up to General Spielsdorf's house. Around the horseman the shadows roiled, and as he approached the great marble and granite entry to the mansion he drew alongside a black carriage. Quickly a stable hand ran forward to secure the lone steed's reins and the rider dismounted in a tenebrous wave, his cloak unfurling in a banner of ebony and scarlet. He raised an arm to the night, his silhouette a silver lining in the burnished light of the moon, and extending a riding crop the man pointed and waved it as if in signal to the coachman seated high on his box. The carriage jostled slightly as its horses snorted and impatiently shook their heads, the coach driver bowed his head. This newcomer was met at the steps by the door attendant and the man in black, darker than midnight, flowed into the brightly lit ballroom like a ghastly, ominous stain and stood and stared. And at the appearance of this Delphian apparition, the music stopped.

It was the Countess who dropped her smile and ceased laughing when she beheld the man in black staring at her. She released herself from the dance and from General Spielsdorf's arms, a crease of worry etching itself into her brow. Laura and her beau took the last steps of their waltz and stopped directly before the spectre in jet. Both looked to the newcomer. Across the room Marcilla and her handsome partner ceased dancing too; the young people all bowed and applauded each other. upon some unspoken signal the Countess dropped her smile, and turned back to the General.

"Excuse me, General," said the Countess, her eyes clouded by a look of silent doubt.

"Of course," replied General Spielsdorf as he watched the Countess step away. He looked on with much curiosity as the man in ebony and scarlet lifted his tall black hat with a hand encased in black leather gloves. The man was frightfully pale, in fact his skin was so pale as to be of an unhealthy pallor and his lips were by contrast vividly crimson. He stood upon the platform, a cold and sibylline pillar, darksome and foreshadowing some fated intelligence, holding a riding crop in one hand and his silver buckled hat in the other. The man did not move into the crowd to greet the Countess as she moved toward him, but rather he watched her with hard agate coloured eyes as she approached. Those eyes looked down upon her and they flickered in silent authority so that the Countess bowed as if she were in the presence of some royal absolute. It was as if she were but a peon and he the master to which she must yield; there could be no doubt as to the meaning of his body language. There was something mysterious and oddly unfriendly about this newcomer and the General noted not only the dark mantle that enwrapped his form but the haughty attitude and the cool contempt for the Countess, and she in his thrall. The man in black leant forward, ever so slightly, bringing his thin red lips in line with the woman's right ear, but the General was not close enough to hear what the man whispered, and besides, the whole room had begun to buzz with chatter. This was a new spectacle, one of shadow and fire and it had set all the tongues in the room wagging yet again. The General turned to the orchestra and signalled with a wave of a white gloved hand that they should commence playing a tune at once, anything to divert the sudden attention away from that man in black. A bad omen, like a crow, he feared that the stranger had unveiled a cloud of shadow upon the festivities and upon the good cheer of the party guests and thought it best if the music set them all to dancing again. As the young people recommenced their dance the Countess turned away from the mysterious gentleman and her face had paled. A look of confusion and concern crossed her countenance and her hand came up to rest above her heart. She was obviously trying to preserve her calm but this was belied by the blanched hue of her visage and whatever had been said no less bespoke of nothing favourable. She shook her head as she walked back to General Spielsdorf's side.

"Bad news?" asked the General.

"A dear friend of mine is dying," replied the Countess, and although her tone had become ominous her eyes were still lucid.

"Oh, I am so sorry."

"You will forgive me…" the Countess said falteringly, blinking the emerald jewels of her eyes and looking all and every bit lost and confused and in need of sympathy, "for leaving you like this?"

The General quickly noted her new anxiety. "Is there anything I can do?"

People had begun to stare again and this made the General painfully aware of his guest's discomfort.

"Well I…" The Countess dropped her eyes and her voice and her sentence hovered over an obviously difficult contemplation. When she began again she glanced in the direction of her daughter. "Oh, I hardly dare to ask you, but…" The handsome woman looked aside and her cheeks flushed rosy with embarrassment, "my daughter, Marcilla..."

The General followed her glance and he saw the stunningly beautiful girl laughing and smiling as she spun and whirled in the arms of her young partner. Her slender hands were entwined in the hands of the youth and as she danced her high breasts swelled so that they all but escaped from the bosom of her dress, the hues of her pink skin glowing hotly under the shimmering fabric as she swayed. Catching himself staring the General tore his gaze back to the Countess. A half-knowing smile seemed to lift the corners of the Countess's lips. It was almost as if the General were conscious of being deliberately snatched up in a net and the girls' gorgeous flesh was the bait that most men could neither deny nor resist. Yet the Countess no doubt had mistaken his stare for a barely concealed lust, like all the men in the room were lusting, but in this instance she could not have been further from the truth. From somewhere far away, in the deeper recesses of his mind the General understood that what would be asked of him would be a decision made in haste. Although he seemed powerless, and the laws of hospitality abiding, he knew he would acquiesce.

"It is a long journey," the Countess added hastily. "We must ride all night."

"My dear Countess," returned the General, "I assure you it would be my pleasure to look after your daughter." The words were impulsive, almost, and a fire sparked green in the Countess's eye. It was like a secret, unspoken knowledge that no man can contradict, one that registered recognition of Marcilla's great allure with a sly twist at the edges of the Countess's smile. As he spoke General Spielsdorf felt a stab of shame as the words left his mouth. "If you so wish," he added quickly, but the die had been cast and the Countess gasped in appreciation.

"She'll be good company for Laura," he assured the Countess. There, that was the justification. Laura needed good company to break up the monotony of this pastoral life. He briefly pondered his words, and hopeful that no unfortunate impropriety had been intimated, he smiled at the Countess. In the light of Emma Morton leaving the party early and Laura's own visit to the Morton house still some weeks away, it might be a good thing if the beautiful young Countess stayed for a few days as guest, although he hardly knew why, but his heart harboured a quickly ascending reservation about that.

"General," said the Countess delightedly, "you are too kind!"

"Not at all," the man responded, and something in his head was confused. He couldn't help but think that he had been cajoled and this truth bewildered him. When, he asked himself, had he ever gone weak in the presence of female beauty?

Before he could utter another word the Countess interjected. "I must tell Marcilla." Abruptly she stepped away from the General, and all the while the man in black observed with a cold and studying eye, and placing his tall hat back upon his raven locks he turned and walked from the room.

Marcilla's handsome young partner had been letting his eye pass freely over her exquisite body. Not that this bothered the girl at all, in fact she seemed to encourage his desires, firstly by wordlessly acquiescing to the fervour of his clasp and secondly by deliberately pressing her bosom against him as they met. The young man could hardly believe how beautiful this girl was, how her thick tresses cascaded and lifted in the air, how her red lips glistened, how her breasts, so soft and yet high and proud and with cherry nipples peeped just under the low cut of her gown. He wanted to put his lips to those breasts, to lie between her parted thighs and thrust, and he felt his sex going hard again. Marcilla's eyes sparkled as if she knew all of his lurid thoughts and her lips curled up in an enigmatic smile. Within the surging tide of floating dancers the Countess pressed forward to her daughter, and as she drew near she indicated with a slim white finger that the girl should approach. The younger woman detached herself from her partner and leant an ear to her mother. The older woman talked and the younger barely responded, nodding only slightly when her mother took hold of her hand. There were brief but serious looks exchanged. All about the two women a kaleidoscope of gaudy colours reeled, the music a waltz, the dancers intoxicated by romance. And then the Countess kissed her daughter on the cheek and turned in a flutter of obsidian and gold and departed. Marcilla stood motionless as she watched her mother go, but it was only for a moment, and then she spun back to her young man and rejoined him in the dance. He smiled triumphantly as he took her in his arms.

Outside, in the carriageway under the great Grecian columned portico, the Countess, wrapped in her travelling cloak, swirled in an indigo cloud that swept her into the waiting vehicle. A footman folded up the carriage steps and closed the door. Behind the coach the man in black sat impatiently astride his dusky steed, its nostrils flaring as it stamped at the ground.

"I am so sorry," she said to General Spielsdorf from the carriage window, extending her hand.

The General took that hand in his own and gently kissed it, "Goodbye, and a safe journey."

The Countess nodded, but the dark within the coach washed over her face and the General saw only the lamplight rippling in her green eyes from within the hood of her cape. The vehicle jolted forward, its team straining against the shafts and the harness, eager to be off at a gallop and the General watched solemnly as it was swallowed up by the night, the black horseman riding after. General Spielsdorf stood staring at the disappearing vehicle, wondering about the suddenness of it all and the mysterious new charge with whom he had been left. He pondered until his door attendant, Conrad, motioned that he should return to the party out of the chilly air, reluctantly leaving the night behind in favour of the candlelight.

After many dances Laura rested and her uncle poured for her a glass of sweet punch; she was beaming happily with a radiant smile upon her rosette lips.

"Would you like her to stay with us, Laura?" General Spielsdorf was absently watching the dancers, roving his glance across the party guests. He could not see young Ebhardt and his voice seemed somehow detached, bored even.

"Are you tired, uncle?" asked Laura, noting her uncle's distraction, and he responded with a vague smile. For a brief moment he regretted having offered to accommodate the Countess of availing her daughter upon him. Perhaps he might have asked Laura first, but young girls always loved the company of other young girls. They seemed to fill their vapid lives with endless chat about silly things, especially about falling in love and ridiculous romance. If only these young women could understand that love was not the superficial commodity they thought it was but rather something beyond the flesh. The General shook his head, for who was he to talk, like he knew anything at all about love. He almost laughed aloud at his extreme hypocrisy. A guest's presence in the house of course meant that his own passionate dealings would have to be more discreet, more guarded, but he was not overly concerned because shadows always obscured reality and made it rather uncertain what it was you thought you saw.

"Of course, uncle," said Laura, sensing that he was preoccupied by other thoughts. "But where is she?"

Looking around they found the object of their conversation absent. Marcilla was indeed nowhere to be seen.

In the dark, outside in the park, Marcilla emerged from the house and came out under the trees. Her skin was ivory and shone in the light of the moon, her dress a deep splash of undulating crimson as it rippled in the shadows. She paused, listening to the music playing inside the ballroom, then after a while she moved silently away from the house. If one could move without taking a step then that is how Marcilla moved through the dark, for she glided toward the forested incline, casting a strangely twisted shadow upon the ground as she passed. The shadow undulated and pulsed with a glinting agate cadence as if it belonged to some form of creature that was surely not a young woman. It had a shape that suggested vacillating wings, a throbbing and elongated body; a tail like a great feline beast. The shadow was all these things at the same time, and it spilled along the turf in an oily slick, rolling over stone and flint, over flower and lawn and brush. In her wake a rose bush withered and its cerise petals fell into etiolated ashes. Up on the hill the man in black waited for her, his cloak flapping like a pestiferous sail filled with the wind of oblivion, red like fire and dark like a raven's wings. His face was a mask of chalk, the cheeks hollow, his lips grey in the moonlight. Atop his mount this figure grew in immensity, bloating up in a thundercloud, a dark disentanglement, a restlessly impalpable Charybdis. As the beautiful girl approached the rider his pale visage seemed split in an animal slash of a smile, a smile studded with a row of wetly glinting and long, sharp vulpine teeth.

Chapter 3:

Troubled Dreams

In which Laura begins having troubled dreams and General Spielsdorf becomes concerned for her health.

The afternoon sunshine was warm as Marcilla and Laura walked along the annex that bordered the garden. Marcilla moved in the shade under the terrace and did not come out into the declining sunlight. Yet even in the cooler shadows, in the light of the waning day, she was if anything even more radiantly beautiful than she had appeared the night before. Her skin was almost translucent as if it were wrought from the thinnest of fine tissue paper, under the surface could be seen the delicate blue tracery of veins through which her young blood flowed. The girl's hair was so thick and heavy, but of the most marvellous auburn sheen; it cascaded freely upon her shoulders and about her bosom. The light of broken stars glittered in its thick tresses and it smelled of the most glorious perfume. Today the spectacular red dress she had worn the night before was given over in favour of a sky blue silken gown. This dress too augmented the shape of the girl's body in all its curves, her hips, her breasts; its waistline raised high and tied off beneath her boson with a silken ribbon. Marcilla's dress left nothing to the imagination, the perfect swell of her breasts were displayed, and without shame, by the very low cut neckline. A huge ruby glowed in the valley of her bosoms, dangling on a golden chain. Laura's dress by comparison was much more conservative. The General's niece had chosen a light olive green striped drop whose neckline was enclosed by a bright viridian lacework; the hem was embroidered with green stem leaf. About her waist was a wide and girlish velvet bow, as was her yellow locks. The beautiful stranger was threading a crown of ivy as she paced languidly beside her new friend. The morning had found Laura eager for her new friendship. She had waited at the breakfast table for Marcilla to come down from her room, but Marcilla had not come. Laura could hardly conceal her disappointment. Surely the beautiful stranger would be eager for congress. Laura had thought about their new guest all of the morning, from the very first moment she had woken. Who might she be? Laura thoughts tumbled over and over, thoughts about all the things she would ask her guest and she would listen to the new arrival's every last word with anticipation and excitement. What was her family name? Where had she been living? Had she travelled abroad? So many questions to ask but most of the day had already expired and Laura sat alone with only disappointment for company. The young woman had resisted the compulsion to run upstairs and knock upon Marcilla's door, knowing that the girl would be tired from her journey and from the party. There was no need to be vulgar in the pursuit of gratification, but it was an agony of waiting and in discontent Laura had retreated to the library and had tried to settle to a romance, but found her mind wandering and wondering. There was little allure to be had in the lurid tale she had chosen about a woman, whose rival for a man's affections was a murderess. She could not concentrate on _Zofloya_ despite its promises of sensation and romance and she closed its covers and left it on the library settee. The housekeeper had then brought Laura morning tea, smiling with her benign and ruddy face, yet the tea was without flavour and it was not what she desired in any case. There would be nothing sweeter than to talk happily with Marcilla. She had joined her uncle for lunch and they had dined on a dish of thinly sliced Leberkäse served on semmel with savoury Bavarian mustard followed by sweet apples from the General's own orchard. Those apples shone like huge ornamental garnets and emeralds in their bowl, aromatic and freshly redolent. Despite their tempting appearance Laura did not partake, she was astir for want of communication with her new house guest. The General had enjoyed his midday repast but had gently reprimanded Laura upon her lack of appetite. Ebhardt was away at a neighbouring farm, organising the erection of a barn so she could not meet with him either to discuss any details about the new guest. In a fit of lassitude Laura had retreated to a bench under the portico from which she saw the flight of butterflies among the flowers, and as the afternoon drew on, the shadows of the trees lengthened into long black fingers. In fact it was not until afternoon tea had come and gone that Marcilla finally made an appearance, and by that time the clock in the main hall had chimed the hour of three. Marcilla had excused herself, saying that she had danced too much the night before and had been so tired as to stay in bed all day. Despite this Laura leapt from her seat and the new arrival embraced her and kissed her cheek. Laura smiled.

"You did frighten us last night," Laura commented, looking at Marcilla in earnest, her face becoming etched with a sudden worry. There could be no excuse for the disquiet it had caused. The servants had searched high and low and had not been able to locate the beautiful house guest. They had feared the worst, that she had been abducted or run off after her mother. General Spielsdorf had been upon the brink of dispatching a courier until he realised in embarrassment that he knew not where the Countess had gone. It was a most perplexing and foolish situation in which to be placed, especially if it ultimately involved the authorities. The General could hardly admit that he had fallen under such a powerful guile.

"I went for a walk," Marcilla responded. "Your uncle's estate is so big I lost myself."

"For hours!" Laura exclaimed. "Everyone was looking for you."

Marcilla tilted her bewitching face and smiled.

"And then you suddenly appeared," continued Laura, "as if by magic."

Marcilla stopped in her pace beside a terracotta planter filled with bright yellow flowers. She turned to face Laura. When the ravishing stranger looked into Laura's eyes the world abruptly underwent a peculiar change, as if it had momentarily stopped. The birds ceased their song in the brush, the horses in the stables and the geese in the cook's garden, all were silent. No sound drifted from the house.

"You must not worry about me. I like to wander off on my own sometimes." Marcilla reached out and placed her hand upon Laura's arm and its lingering caress smouldered like an ember that wanted to flare into full flame. The touch was light, like the wings of a moth, and it burned in a strange but pleasing way. It was extraordinary how Laura heard only the sound of Marcilla's voice. It was the sound of euphony, choral, sweet, and melodious. Nothing else broke into the moment, the rest of existence tumbled into nothing. The fading sun flared in a bright and titan coronal flare, a stream of yellow particles more intense than any blaze ever witnessed in the heavens, and it filled Laura's eyes with light. She felt the sudden throb of her heartbeat and the rush of the blood through her veins. That rush was like a river of molten fire and the sensation was new and altogether inexplicable. The waning sunlight poured a golden spill over the garden, creating an illuminated halo about the slender form of Marcilla. The young woman's silhouette shimmered and Laura gazed in a trance at the sensuous movement of Marcilla's lips, how they glistened like pomegranate, and even there in the shade of the glacis, a fire, like a liquid thread of gold sparked on the chain that encircled her neck. It was a strangely glorious feeling just to look upon this marvellously beautiful girl, it made one feel a warm rush, a desire that was intoxicating and wanton. It was so different to anything that she had ever felt before. With just one gaze, just one touch Marcilla had awakened what men had failed to awaken, what young Ebhardt did not stir in her soul. Had she been fooling herself all of this time, telling herself that she loved Carl and only Carl? Marcilla dropped her voice to a whisper and sang to Laura as if she understood her thoughts.

"Dear Laura," she said, taking back her slim hand and returning to the final interlacing thread of ivy that she had been fashioning into a crown. Marcilla reached up and placed the laurel upon Laura's blond head. "I do feel we'll be such good friends."

Gradually, like the passing of an eternity upon a sun dial, the signs of reality came fading back into view.

"Silly," Laura responded after a mute moment, like a clockwork doll, a mechanical wonder that knew hardly any mind of its own, "we already are."

Marcilla smiled and stroked Laura's golden tresses and ran her fingers through them. The touch sent a shiver through the girl's spine, a not disagreeable frisson, but a thrill that could not be given name.

"How beautiful you are," Marcilla told her, and the world of the tenuous blinked back in the chirping of birds, the bark of a hound and the hum of insects. A servant girl was calling from the apple orchard; the sun seemed somehow less bright.

"Now you're just teasing me," Laura told her new friend, "like Carl always does." Marcilla seemed to make a small but derisive sound and Laura's lips opened upon a question, but the question was quelled upon the instant.

"Carl?" Marcilla asked.

"Yes, Carl Ebhardt. You know, the handsome young man I was dancing with last night."

Marcilla blinked her blue eyes, blinking away recognition of Carl in less time than it took to draw a breath.

"I too danced with a handsome young man last night," said Marcilla and she caressed Laura's pink cheek with the back of her hand, "but I shall not be marrying him."

"How did you know?" asked Laura, her cheek tingling under the electric touch of the other girl.

"That I won't be marrying the young man I danced with or that you will be marrying Carl?"

"Don't make fun, you know what I meant."

"And how could I not know?" Marcilla's tone was taciturn, contradictory to her meaning and she tilted her head just a fraction to the left, glancing over the park and beyond the trees. Laura followed her gaze. There was nothing there in the near distance that she could see, only green, gold, and cool shadows, and the slope of the forest as it rose into the hinterland.

"Is it that obvious?" Laura asked, turning back to Marcilla, and it was a strange thing to feel, this abrupt and unwanted doubt about being wed that was now in her head. She had not felt uncertainty before, not this weird misgiving that made her a little light headed, and all because a stranger was here with her, in the garden suggesting strange things and touching her as she had never been touched before. The girl gave an indifferent sigh and she encircled Laura's waist with her arms and pressed her close in a tight embrace. That embrace was lingering but it was also compelling and it made Laura feel somehow alive, a sensation, a thrill almost that communicated her acceptance to the deliverer. Laura shuddered, but it was not a disagreeable shiver and Marcilla, as if she were fully aware of the power of her touch, gave a little half smile and shrugged. Laura's senses filled up with the scent of magnolia and roses and she reeled almost upon the point of fainting. As Marcilla's beautiful carmine smile arched her lovely mouth she lowered her hand and in so doing waved away any further thoughts of Carl Ebhardt.

As they walked back into the house Laura did not notice that the celandine in the terracotta pot had withered and died.

The moon blossomed in an indigo firmament like a great silver discus. It glimmered hazily, the heavy drapes were pulled back, and the lacy curtain spread in dappled gauze across the moon's sterling face, changing the density of its light. A window lay open to the stars. By this subdued light the apartment was as still as the bottom of the ocean is still. Moreover, all was silent. The girl stood by the window, looking out through the canopy of tulle, her reflection a transparent doppelganger in the silver surface of the looking glass. She stood as still as a statue. When the breeze did stir the lace it blended the whiteness into the thin gossamer fabric of her gown, making both of light and air and ethereal. Under the sheer fabric could be glimpsed the pale circles of her nipples and the triangular thatch of hair at her pelvis. Her shadow flickered against the wall at her back, distorted and unlike the shape of a young girl; her face was as white as the drapes. The girl's eyes were wide as if she were watching and waiting in a suspense, in a strange agony. Her anticipation was betrayed in her wild expectant gaze and the tense attitude of her flesh. She gazed intently into the fireless darkness and she listened. To her the night sounded with a terrible bedlam, there was noise and din in every breath, every step, every trill, and every howl. The girl could hear the horses in the stables, she could hear the housekeeper as she snored in her slumbers, she could hear the rats in the barn squeaking and scratching. There were owls in the trees and there were fleet and timid deer in the forest ways. And there was something else too, something that bestrode the accursed nightmare. The phantom had ridden into the park on a black horse and had changed the landscape into the realm of a cold, caliginous storm. With a brittle caress the chill had drawn the girl to the window, with a fervent command it bade her enter into the night. And it called her by name.

Night breathed in attendance and spread a sable mantle over the General Spielsdorf's Palladian estate. Under the glimmer of a gibbous moon coal dyed shadows coiled about the vertical shafts of high Corinthian columns. A crisp and shivery wind blew in from the alpine north, scattering rust coloured leaves in fleeting swirling vortices and bending the spines of the tallest poplars. A bird made a startled cry in the night wind and the sound's splintered echo sang throughout the park. From the stables the agitated pitch of a horse whiney might have been heard, a dog was howling somewhere far off in the dark. Something from the Pit ventured into the night. Up the granite façade of the manor house the wind swept, thrusting and forcing the shadows toward the roof in a rising black tide, spilling up the fluted concave pillars and flowing along the stone like ink spilled on a midnight canvas. The shades roiled and rippled over column and capital, reaching claw-like to an upper storey window. There the shadows arrested and hesitated, pulsing and throbbing. It was as if the darkness paused and glanced over an imaginary shoulder, as if assuring itself that it was unobserved, before turning back and swelling in the casement. At the occluded Sirlian mouth of Laura's window the shadows stained the unadorned entablatures before gathering into a tight knot and breaching the window glass. The brass latches on the inside sprang back with a soundless click and the frames thrust inward. There the dark pulled the heavy velvet drapes aside and danced the flimsy lace in a pallid eclipse of dusk and starless silver, billowing in a silent wind, flapping noiselessly, like a sail unfurling before the rising gale. Dust glittered in a sliver of argent moonlight, pewter, and brass together, whirling, floating, and spinning. A candle had burned itself out on the bedside table, little streams of tallow had run down, and pooled in the saucer, the wick had been spent hours ago. The shadows entered the room and spilled across the Persian carpet, across the oval portraits, across the argent surface of the mirror. Laura, lost unto sleep in her four-poster sea of oyster sheets and claret velvet, threw her pretty head about on her satin pillow. Unsettled she gave a little gasp, a little moan, and the floating impalpable dusts were aeriform in the moonlight and stirred about her, never settling, agitated, and dancing. The darkness began to deepen and within it a shadow commenced to emerge, to take on form, and to pace across the breadth of the room. It wove back and forth and as it did so, moved inexorably toward the bed and the sleeping girl. Slipping lithely on softly padded feet and coming closer... closer, its stride began measuring a weird tempo, the room dimmed darker, and Laura dreamed. She dreamed that the darkness had eyes, and those eyes watched her, huge round and sapphire blue eyes that fixed her with a longing, desiring and yet terrifying gaze. The eyes blinked as stars blink in the blackness, flaming jewels darting in the folds of stained pitch, while all about those eyes the night began solidifying into a form almost corporeal. The young woman felt the dream's ire, as if she were in possession of something it sorely coveted, but what that something was Laura did not know nor how she was to give it. In the dark powdery grains like dust danced an ethereal ballet about her bed and in the moonlight they threaded into Laura's hair, plaited it with copper threads and spread over her pillow. The airs in the room seemed to grow thicker, denser, and colder and as the light drained away the whole bedroom appeared to alter, changing in the dimness, bleeding away all hue and tint. The powder green wallpaper faded to grey, the crimson drapes of the four-poster leeched into charcoal, the gleam of the looking glass blinked into a pool of depthless black-silver. Restlessly the darkness roved back and forth, gathering the dust motes unto its shapeless form and turning the entire room into a stark black and white dreamscape. As the dreamscape of sleep became monochromatic the dark began to solidify and morph, to take on a spectral form. It began moulding the substance of night from the nothing, shifting and churning, the shades quickening as it prowled like a wild beast, its shadow thrown on the wall suggesting the shape of a great cat. The night crossed back and forth, drawing closer and closer as the pretty young woman tossed about helpless in her bower. Laura's dream was indeed wondrous but it also swelled with a nasty hostility, conjuring an unspoken love that she wanted to return but the love spurned a strange agony and disgust that roiled together in a cloud of anger. Frozen in a paralysis the girl struggled to open her eyes, struggled to wake up. In her mind Laura had the strange ideate notion that the anger was at the core of the love, and it evoked a familiar face amid the cloudy coils of the fantasy, but the glimpse was brief and indefinable. The face belonged to someone she only half knew, someone she regardless held dear, to someone who cherished her. There was a curious reassurance in the fleeting half recognition, yet even as she thought this the vision responded with a soft, purring snarl and flickered again to black. The shadow of a shadow at last towered gigantically over the bed and up the wall, expanding almost all the way up to the ceiling. It grew bigger and bigger still and as it distended it called out to Laura by name. Caught up in its rhapsody Laura whimpered and the phantasm parted the pall of black and at length, becoming thickly corporeal, it leapt up upon the bed, sprang upon the covers and the great blue eyes hovered above Laura's frozen gaze. The dark settled in beside her on the bed. It reached forward and a chill caress brushed the young woman's ivory cheek only to settle with a kiss that died on her lips and stifled the scream rising in her throat. The kiss lingered upon Laura's lips and it tasted fetid and corrupt. Laura's lips turned from cherry and then to wine in the darkening illumination. And the kiss parted her lips and invaded her mouth, sliding over her tongue and down her throat, choking off the air that she breathed and filling her with a retching, heaving convulsive horror. But the night was seductive, it benumbed as much as it assaulted, dragged the girl down into a sea of intangible fears and hideously strange longings. Like a fragile shell borne in the undertow, rolled over and over, and spun into a dizzying liquid maelstrom, Laura began to groan aloud, gasping, unable to shake the horror off or catch her breath. She felt her heart racing, heard its volume ascending, pounding in her ears. She had not tempted the nightmare yet it inspired a feeling of guilt within her, yet she knew that in refusal it would have come anyway, uninvited, a thief in the night intent on ravaging her soul. She tried desperately to throw it off. In response to her mounting terror Laura felt it begin to caress her so as to soothe away her protests even as she threw up her hands to ward away the danger. And the shadows were icy, chill filaments they were, splintering fragments of glacial numbness that began wrapping Laura's body from head to toe, consuming her. "No," she managed through the choking malaise that filled up her mouth and "no" again, and yet again. And the frozen mantle of the nightmare moved so that it was now on top of her, mounting her, its coldness leaking quickly under the bedclothes. The dream began to pulsate, to rise, and fall in time to Laura's laboured breath. Up it rose as she struggled to breathe in, down it fell as she let go the gasping air from her lungs. The shadow was so heavy, like a block of cold stone, crushing her down, paralysing her body, but growing warmer as it consumed her, hotter as the blood raced through her veins. And so this pulsing, throbbing motion continued, as if the girl were floating in a tidal swell with the weight of the night world pushed upon her form. Obsidian waves caught her up and took her high, the same waves mercilessly threw her down again. The coils of night wove a dreadful net and grasped her as if they were great looping tendrils of rope. The night ropes held her down, and then held her apart. She felt a horrible and yet exciting sensation begin below her pelvis, as if something slippery and rigid were prying her thighs apart, touching her intimately and deeply. Laura heard her own weak cry of protest, part denial, and part consent, but she knew the sound was useless, for her lips were muffled under a gag of stifling black. The dream had now become much more than a terrifying nightmare. Something previously unbeknown to Laura had found the virginal entrance to her body and something insistent and hard wanted ingress into her most secret and sacred parts. She groaned and gasped as the darkness solidified and probed, testing the locked gate of her sex, pressing inward, and wetly. Laura struggled and resisted, and the nightmare pushed harder, and then retracted and then pushed harder again. The young woman felt her velvet interior stretching and stretching wider to a point where it must give and snap and the night would flood into her flesh in a thrumming crescendo of pulsing triumph. And as the violation reached that penultimate moment in which Laura's nerves became electrified and her pelvis shuddered and became hot, wet, and viscous, she felt a stinging pain, twofold, run deep into her breast. The pain was abrupt and intense and it burned its way like a firebrand all the way to her heart. And Laura awoke and screamed… and screamed again and again and again.

The General awoke to the screaming, and the screaming resounded in a terrifying cacophony that shattered the calm and ran a shiver of fright into every soul in the house. The housekeeper, woken from her snoring leapt from her bed and without her slippers, ran from her room. General Spielsdorf was already dashing headlong up the corridor in the direction of his niece's room, tying his velvet night jacket about his middle as he did so. Another maid appeared in the hall. They were all confused and all frightened at the calamity.

In the passing of a few heart beats the General had made it to Laura's bedroom, where the girl was sitting erect in her bower and still screaming hysterically as he entered. The room was cold, as if it were already winter, a candle had been burning by the bedside but its orange flame had died, and the room danced in the semi darkness of the light of the moon. The window was open and the drapes were swirling. A young maid entered carrying a lighted lamp and she shivered and pulled her shawl closer about her shoulders. The housekeeper following her lit a taper and gave its life to the candle on the dresser. The candle fluttered in the chill wind and when it settled the room filled up with waxen light and chased away the shadows. Spielsdorf rushed up to his niece's bedside and at once began to calm her. She ceased to scream when she saw and recognised him but her screams had only turned to frightened whimpers and the General tried his best to soothe away her terrors.

"Laura, what is it!" he exclaimed, his nerves jangling, his arms reaching forward, his own shaking fingers taking the girl's hand. She clasped at him and held tight and she was trembling like a leaf in a frenzied wind, gooseflesh dimpled her arms. Laura's hand was as cold as ice. Amid the convulsive upheavals of her breath she was trying to speak. "What is it, what is it?" the General repeated, and then not having ever had such an experience before in his military life, he began to mutter silly pacifying words to alleviate the panic and chase away the horror. "There... there," he said softly, soothing her as if she were a child, or worse, a pet, and looking to the housekeeper for reassurance while Laura began to sob and weep, her hair dishevelled, her nightdress gaping at the bosom. The General discretely pulled the sheet up and covered the shivering maiden.

"It was a cat," Laura managed at last in a broken sentence. "A huge cat. It was choking me!" She clutched at her throat and wept.

The General reached up and stroked her cheek. The housekeeper moved forward and looked to the General and as Laura wept, a diamond tear spilled from her eye. Coming up to the bedside the housekeeper took Laura's hand and squeezed it gently. "There, there," she said, and now the housekeeper was doing what her uncle did, mouthing infantile cajolements. Laura wanted to protest that her mind had not suffered some sort of handicap, nor had her feelings, and their ineptitudes were insulting and distressing. "You were having a nightmare," the older woman said, her face a pale wide moon ridiculously topped off with the puff of a cream and fringed nightcap. "That's all." But it was not all, and Laura was certain of that. The nightmare had been real. Why would no one listen to her? The housekeeper sat upon the edge of the bed and nestled in to the girl's side amid the havoc of rumpled sheets and eiderdown. She began to smooth out the creases from the sheets to make Laura more comfortable. With a defeated and passive sigh the young girl lay back upon her pillow. It would do no good to protest, they would not listen anyway. No doubt she was suffering from female troubles and why should anyone concern themselves over that?

"Now you settle down," the housekeeper coaxed warmly, "and have a nice sleep."

It was beyond Laura how she was ever to get to sleep again tonight after such a horrific nightmare. She did not want to be left alone, not in the dark. She tried to nod to the housekeeper but it was useless.

"That's right," soothed the woman. "There we are."

Laura felt exhausted. She reached up and wiped away her tears. "I'm sorry," she said, looking to her uncle and drawing the covers up around her breasts, but she was beyond embarrassment at this point, for the dream had been so real, so terrifying.

"That's all right. You gave us all quite a fright though. We thought it was some prowler." The General leaned forward and spoke another string of inept nothings and with a trembling and uncertain hand touched his niece's cheek. She smiled wanly. "Now you try and get some rest." He leant over and kissed her forehead. "Goodnight, darling."

"There," said the housekeeper smiling benevolently, "you'll be all right now."

But Laura was not reassured. She feared that as soon as her uncle left her room the darkness would return. She had never experienced a nightmare of such vivid intensity before and she did not want to close her eyes again lest the cat returned. The General turned to the maid holding the lamp. "It's all right," he told her, "Thank you."

The maid nodded and departed. Now that the doorframe was empty it only accentuated an emptier, gaping void through which the others must pass and leave Laura alone. As he moved away from Laura's bedside the General cast a concerned glance about the room. He looked quickly to the wardrobe but it was closed, and he glanced under the bed, but there was nothing there. The window was open and there was a breeze rippling the curtains, but the room was on an upper storey and it was highly unlikely that an intruder had climbed so far up the side of the house. He crossed to the window and glanced down into the garden. All he could see were the grey smudges of the topiary and the stencils of frozen statuary. He closed the portal against the chill airs, fastening the brass latch. Motioning silently to the housekeeper they both left the room. Laura smiled weakly as she watched them go. And nervously she looked toward the window.

Outside her room, in the red carpeted corridor, the General and the housekeeper hesitated.

"Oh," gasped the housekeeper, "such screams! It's enough to wake the dead."

She paused and turned to face General Spielsdorf. "It must have frightened poor Marcilla to death."

The General nodded his agreement. "Better see how she is."

They walked quickly but quietly up the corridor and the General knocked gently upon Marcilla's door. There was no response. The housekeeper in turn tapped again. A few seconds passed.

"Marcilla," whispered the housekeeper, but no reply followed.

As the housekeeper commenced her knocking again General Spielsdorf stayed her hand. "Let her sleep," he told her, almost unbelieving that the young woman could have slept through all that cacophony.

"All right," replied the housekeeper, only too happy to return to her bedroom and hopefully to sleep. "Good night."

The two separated and the housekeeper disappeared into her room. The General passed a hand through his hair and shook his head. After the gaiety of the party it had turned into a very disturbing night.

A gentle wind was playing a lilting sigh and dancing the curtains; there was no light in Marcilla's room except the silver moonbeams, and they struck the argent surface of an oval mirror and the mirror reflected an empty and dark chamber. The bed lay empty and undisturbed and no one had slept there. A tapestry of a naked nymph hung along the wall and the nude watched over the deserted space. She observed that none of the toiletries had been used or moved upon the dressing table, and the window casement was open to the night. In another room, down the corridor another young girl in her bed was staring out of her own window, staring up at the moon, shivering in her skin and unable to go back to sleep. Outside, on the terrace Marcilla stood quietly in the blue darkness. She was looking up to the house, looking up to Laura's room. There was the ghost of a smile playing about her crimson lips and a single spot of blood stained the bosom of her nightdress.

Chapter 4:

Descending

In which Doctor Voglreiter examines Laura, and how her dreams intensify with terrifying rapidity.

It had all been so sudden, Laura's illness, the progression of less than a week, in which the young woman had grown pale and fragile and then withdrawn. It had begun not long after her birthday party, the very night in fact, with the nightmares that woke the entire household with their chilling physicality and left Laura screaming. A few days later came the fatigue whenever Laura engaged in any activity. She no longer walked in the park and hardly descended from her room to dine. She declined conversation with her uncle and had even turned away an invitation from Carl. In the afternoons their houseguest, Marcilla, who kept her own peculiar hours, would emerge from her own chamber and sit with Laura. Marcilla was the only person Laura would now admit into her room. Yet even Marcilla when questioned by the General had commented that Laura looked so very pale, so bloodless. This made the General especially uneasy about the girl in his charge for he had already lost his brother to an unknown and lethal malaise and was frightened that history should repeat itself. Laura's wasting consumption had been so rapid and despite the girl's wish that Doctor Voglreiter not be called, the General had summoned the physician on the fifth day, worried that he had already waited too long to do so.

Voglreiter had come just before lunch, although the General found his own appetite not apparent and his nerves somewhat rattled.

"It troubles me, Doctor Voglreiter," said the General, his face drawn with a new and unwanted anxiety. "The child seems to get weaker and weaker."

He had confessed his apprehensions of a possible illness, a plague or similar malady that may be passing its pall over the country, but the Doctor had assured him that he knew of no such ailment. Voglreiter had not fully discounted the possibility of an unknown sickness and had asked the General if the girl had suffered from any particular symptoms or sudden changes in her health. He queried headaches or severe diarrhoea and the General, as far as he knew, confessed that he did not understand, but then he also admitted that he had been denied contact with his niece upon her own discretion. General Spielsdorf had wrestled with the problem for a few days and had thought it best if the Doctor were called. Regardless of Laura's unwillingness, the Doctor had briefly examined the ailing girl. Just as she had refused her uncle's questions so did she refuse Voglreiter's clumsy assessment of her health. Laura had ultimately, though resentfully agreed, and unveiled herself while her uncle waited in the room behind a silk screen. This seemed unnecessary and embarrassing and Laura had heard him pacing back and forth behind the screen as he lingered. Although to Laura the screen hardly seemed barrier enough considering the invasive circumstances. But under the duress of it all she allowed the Doctor to take her pulse and check her temperature. He wore a magnifying glass on a silver chain about his neck and it was cold as it touched her breast when he stooped to listen to her heart. He had appeared to quiver about the lips and his light blue eyes had shone as he gazed upon her exposed breast. His stare had travelled all over her body and Laura had felt humiliated and wanted to scream. Raising the ground glass to his vision seemed only further reason to gloat, and peering through it into her eyes and her ears and down her throat was barely more than an excuse to ogle her naked skin. It was all very horrible and had made her uncomfortable, but she nonetheless availed herself of his impersonal examination, all the while protesting that she felt perfectly well and that she couldn't understand why all of the fuss. Most certainly she had been a little tired, but surely that was natural, and no, she did not wish to see anyone, and that was normal too. The physician had asked whether she suffered from a shortness of breath, headaches or dizzy spells, had she been vomiting or had watery stools. He had also asked questions of an even more personal nature alluding to the young woman's menses at which Laura had baulked upon answering. How very improper he was and rude and disgusting, and Laura narrowed her gaze and set her mouth into a tight, angry line. All the while she watched him with a distrusting eye. At one point the Doctor stood aside and disappeared behind the screen and she heard him whispering to her uncle. She did not hear what was said but she resented that these men were treating her like a child, as if she were feeble and incapable of knowing the functions of her own body and unable to contain her emotions when she dared to question anything. Why did her uncle have to be in her room anyway and what was her monthly cycle to do with her feeling the way she did? It was terribly embarrassing when the Doctor had put his awful question to her, but when he had re-emerged from congress with the General he said that he needed to test for any congestion of the pelvis. Not knowing what that meant Laura flinched when he had abruptly placed his cold hand between her legs and felt her most private parts with the tips of his fingers. Well, that was too much. Laura had gasped and recoiled and swiftly pushed his hand away, but it was enough that his examination had proven her 'intact'. She felt humiliated and did not want to answer any more of his silly questions about her 'energies', 'hysterias' and 'instabilities', and she resented her uncle even more for summoning the man. If only Marcilla were here now, surely she would have stayed the Doctor's prying eyes and fumbling hand. He had made Laura squirm with discomfort and she wanted him out of her room. As he rinsed his hands in her washing bowl he asked her about the bad dreams she had been having, but Laura did not reply, and instead she rolled over in her bed and faced away from him and looked to the wall. "Go away." She thought, and the words slipped out of her mouth anyway and the baldpate physician raised an eyebrow and smiled, telling her he was done for now and that she should rest. Exhausted after her trial, Laura closed her eyes and pulled the covers up about her bosom and within a few minutes she was asleep and both the Doctor and the General were momentarily forgotten. Before the veils of sudden sleep covered her, Laura did not even entertain one thought about Ebhardt. The abrupt shift from ire to apathy seemed to concern the General more than it did the Doctor for the physician did not seem the least rattled. The General had a maid servant fold up the screen and pull the curtains to Laura's room, and he and Voglreiter retired to the drawing room.

"Doctor Erich, don't you think it strange that this illness should come on so rapidly and leave her in such torpor?" asked the General. The two men now sat in the drawing room and contemplated Laura's mystery. "Why, it hasn't even been a week and she has become so unwell."

Over a glass of brandy they discussed Laura's condition and the Doctor was now sitting comfortably in a cushioned chair that was far more elegant than anything in his tiny village accommodations. His room on the second floor across from the tavern was small, cramped and noisy. It provided him scant privacy to investigate his obsessions and he looked around with a little envy at the grand opulence on display, the paintings in gilded frames, the Persian carpets and the polished French furniture. And the fine Cognac, of course! For a moment Voglreiter enjoyed the luxury, it was not every day that one could take pleasure in such rich comforts. Not on his pitiful income. Upon this point he berated himself only a little, in that he had chosen to live in the wilds of the Austrian hinterland over the bustling metropolis of Vienna. Erich Voglreiter was fifty nine years of age and the last twenty years of those fifty nine years had been spent in the Stirian wilds. He thought reflectively that if he had set up a practice in Vienna, long ago, he might have improved his pocket vastly, but he had settled instead for this isolated rural practice. When he had come to the region it had been difficult to gain acceptance and some of his city colleagues had said he had been foolish in accepting a position in the uncultivated backwoods. But contrarily he rather enjoyed the pastoral solitude. It provided a security of sorts from human expectation and there were certainly advantages in isolation. Sometimes it even provided the opportunity to pursue other branches of research that the close scrutiny of medical universities did not allow, such as surgical enquiry and apothecary. There were always those who could turn a blind eye to such fields of research, his local magistrates being no exception. Fees of course were generally incurred for the privilege, but such blindness needed to be watched carefully. In the uneducated there was always the possibility of violence, for superstition proved a breeding ground for one's own destruction if the views of the brute were challenged. One only had to cite the recent problems encountered by that fellow Frankenstein, and the curse of popular but regressive thought in light of his own scientific discoveries. Like that notorious Baron, Voglreiter had always been interested in natural history and more importantly in the biological and the forensic sciences. There was much to learn from the bodies of the deceased and where this learning about the real world crossed into the dominion of supernature was in the opening of corpses. Looking at the wonder of life from the inside of a corpse opened up a whole new world of learning. Seeing into things that could not be seen with the naked eye was indeed a privilege but it vexed the yokel. For Erich this line of research filled him with as much wonder as it must have awed the Baron Frankenstein. But then backward thought had declared that Frankenstein must be destroyed, and that was the red flag often waved before Voglreiter. Being a firm advocate for scientific advancement Erich had purchased from an English catalogue a portable Carey microscope. How that marvellous instrument had unlocked the wondrous new world that lay hidden from every man on earth in that they knew not how to look. The microscope helped him probe secretly into what lay hidden from normal view. In the unblinking eye of the magnifier he was able to glimpse tiny but obviously living things, things that twitched and swam in a universe concealed to the untrained eye. How wonderful were the revelations, in that they were unto visions laid open in another and completely different form of atmosphere, yet one so directly connected to the temporal existence as to be surely beyond the constraints of superstition. This instrument allowed one to behold the germ of life in all of its glory, the seeds that made up plant and animal and to reveal the true nature of all things. Science was certainly glorious and it pointed the way to understanding nature, but every once in a while, peering into the microscope's objective lens, it was divulged unto Voglreiter more anomalies and curiosities than he could explain. The microscope had changed his ideas about the medical causes of death. Why, it even caused him to ponder deeply the notion of size and its relevance to existence and how even a ray of light had cause and effect. One day, upon a strange compulsion Voglreiter had treated a soldier suffering from a wild distemper. With his skin a scarlet rash, his eyes enflamed and in the throes of an agonising urethral discharge, the soldier was obviously poxed and thus was his fever considered highly contagious. There was little Voglreiter had managed to do for the man but make up a tincturae from some crude herbs by dissolving them in alcohol. Then there had been the problem of getting the patient to swallow the solution, and considering his violent rages, that called for the application of tight restraints. The local constabulary had been required to carry out this task, and the man in his wild passions had struck a number of heavy blows to their bodies. Before he was dispatched to the Capital and to the dungeon of some dreadful hospital for the insane to waste away in madness and perish, the man had yielded under the administration of the _Spiritus_ a sample of gleet that Voglreiter had carefully examined with his microscope. It was both a horror and a fascination to see the pathology swimming on the sliver of glass, and to watch the arrangement of the contagional syphilis, to glimpse its tiny shape and form and to conjecture its wide and ghastly effect. Was a cure possible? Voglreiter suspected there had to be a cure for this disease but he plainly realised that mercury and other violently invasive treatments were vastly ineffective and even harmful. A less complicated treatment needed to be found; one that was administered into the body via the blood perhaps, for the blood flowed into every secret crevice of the body, did it not?. Of this he felt certain, and would it not be the wonder of all the medical world to astound those arrogant university professors if he were the mechanism through which such a grand discovery were made reality? Of course he merely dreamed. He had none of the research facilities at his disposal that the great hospitals could resource and yet it seemed ridiculous that something as plainly biological as the pox was still treated by the establishment with abhorrence and ignorance as the work of the Devil. Diseases transmitted through sex were provoking modern science to abandon superstition, but alas it was a difficult road to revelation. The Doctor had seen the very essence of life squirming about in their tide of suppurating fluid, horrible and yet gloriously beautiful, wonderful and yet lethal and they demanded respect. These tiny organisms, because they had the power to create and to destroy, were indeed a wonder of the natural order, as opposed to the dominion of the supernatural. Their mechanisms to infect and kill could not been seen by the naked eye let alone understood, yet here, under this magnifier, swimming in their bacterial cistern he was able to spy upon them. And to learn. Moreover, Voglreiter had also wondered if there were things smaller still than these germs, things that his microscope could not detect. Now that was a truly fascinating thought! What was it that hid beyond this temporal realm of existence, a micro cosmos that was even smaller yet? That was the one aspect of such research that stirred up his brain to fevered pitch; for there were things that he wanted to explain to the many but found he did not know how because the language to do so had not yet been invented. Very few people heard the call of this language, and even fewer wanted to listen. He knew there was important knowledge to be gleaned from the living, but so much more could be learned by and unprejudiced study of the dead. Of course he knew that certain plants could be decocted into stimulants to aid sleep and alleviate pain and for purging and adjusting the humours, and all that was relevant. But the deceased harboured a wellspring of knowledge just waiting to be tapped. Yet there was also a need for caution if one were to pursue such science. In a world where the physician was called upon to deal with scabs and wheals and pestiferous sores, of prescribing herbal remedies for grinding aches and running noses and pox, people often baulked at the possibility of dissection and were wary of drugs that turned you into a somnambulist. They were under your complete control then and they did not like that notion. When the gaze was directed within, well, people tended to revert to the impulse of fear. To fools it was an ugly vision within, to look upon heart and lung and liver and bowel. No one wanted to glimpse within the kingdom of the rotting flesh, where the blood no longer pulsed but where King Pest instead had set his seal. It was probably not as bad brewing up a foul tasting herbal, but Voglreiter knew very well that by that simple act alone it was enough for ignorance to consider you a witch. These were still dark times. One had to be careful or they would hunt you down and string you up for meddling in things that profaned God. And Voglreiter told himself that he did not ascribe to religious inclination. That was sensible in a world of rationale, and thus Erich recorded everything he learned in his books and kept copious notes on unusual cases. He was thankful that he would never have to explain his findings to any sceptical peers, simply because here fortunately, in the village of Karnstein, he had none. But these findings oft branched into the weird and the wonderful, where the natural appeared to become inextricably woven with the unnatural. In those cases the Doctor recorded his findings as 'undetermined' because he firmly believed that everything could have an explanation in science. To believe in divine retribution for famine, disease and disaster made no sense. And yet here was a grey area that defied direct explanation, a place where science and religion locked swords and where superstition clashed with reality. He recalled that one case a few years back that had confused everyone, so much so that the Court had ruled it a murder suicide and closed the issue. A young artist, Bruno Heitz, had been found hanging from a corded rope suspended high up in a tree. The young man must have been very agile, for how he had climbed so far up, almost six metres, was a mystery unto itself, but there were other facts in the case that were just as baffling; his face had been horribly mutilated. The young man had been accused of murdering his sweetheart Sascha, the daughter of a local dignitary. It was all doubly horrific because the girl had been pregnant at the time of her murder, and this fact came to light only because Voglreiter had convinced the local authorities, and thus the dignitary and father of the female victim, to allow him to perform an autopsy. It had taken much persuading though, for this province, like most other isolated provinces was vehemently awash with superstitious belief. The provincials had stalled at his first suggestion to examine either body of the young girl or her amour. But this did not surprise or phase Erich either, in fact Voglreiter found the fogs of false notion sometimes beneficial in that they allowed him the liberty to investigate things his peers in Vienna could not. It was a difficult case, made worse because a new life had been forming in Sacha's belly. Was he going to cut that up as well? Such a thing would have caused a moral outrage and Voglreiter would most surely have found persecution an unsympathetic deliverer of his own demise by fire had he suggested such an examination. Only his standing of many years in the local tight knit community went in his stead. He had argued that there was much to be learned from the dead and that perhaps the new life in the girl's womb might possibly even have contributed to her demise. He had pursued his case and cause and eventually the local magistrate had conceded, as Voglreiter knew he would. Just as long as no one else outside of the village of Karnstein knew, Voglreiter might very well be able to provide an answer through his investigations. Strangely though, Voglreiter had found that in this case one of those anomalies he so dreaded was right under his nose; that there was snake venom in the young man's blood! There had been no accounting for that... but upon reflection, those wounds on the artist's face...

The General was watching Voglreiter intently and waiting patiently for a response. Spielsdorf's glass of brandy hovered in mid air and its crystal facets glinted in the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the tall, arched windows. The golden light gave a warm wash to the polished timber surfaces of French lacquers and the rich red upholstered velvets. The Doctor paused in his exalted, reflective dream moment, blinking it away as his twinkling light blue eyes met the General's.

"Anaemia," said he a little too loudly and dismissively, addressing the General and shaking his bald head slightly. Yes, that was it. She had lost too much blood due to her monthly cycle; there could be no other explanation. Although he had noted that Laura's blood circulation was slow, that she did present with a slightly accelerated respiration and that her pulse had decreased. She had gasped a number of times during his examination, but that might have been caused by the chill from his instruments, or even from his fingertips. The thought made him involuntarily lick his lips and a little thrill passed through his loins. He uncrossed his stocking clad legs and his glacial eyes twitched almost perversely in his handsome face. Drily he delivered his diagnosis. "They don't eat," he continued, "only think of their figures." Young girls were all the same, he had seen the behaviour before, many times. Their monthly cycle sometimes caused a collapse in their health and their mental energies, limiting their physical resources and their flow of blood. The lack of circulation made these girls delicate, and that was putting the fact mildly. In one small corner of his head Voglreiter thought that he might be being somewhat dismissive of Laura's illness, but it could hardly be anything other than female hysteria. He saw the symptoms all of the time and having to diagnose such trivia actually bored him. The house call was duty but his true calling was research. There was a breath of vision in research that was not to be had in having to deal with the silly complaints as those experienced by vapid teenage girls.

General Spielsdorf appeared unconvinced. He had not known his niece to present with such an illness before when that time of the month came upon her, and never had she rejected him as she did now to rebuff his concerns for her health. Not that she was ever ill, but now it seemed she was in need of convalescence. It confused the General. He had hoped that the Doctor would diagnose the problem and put Laura quickly on the road to recovery because he really had not the mindset of late to concern himself with more problems. It was bad enough that he had consented to his young manager and Laura's marriage, all for the foolish notion that such a union would bind everyone together in an unbreakable bond... and keep Ebhardt close. The General was not convinced that the Doctor was correct in his dismissal of Laura's symptoms. Perceiving the General's reservations, the Doctor added "It's common with young girls, Sir, I assure you." For a moment he paused in wry reflection. "And a few old ones too!"

"Disgusting," thought the General, the image of an old woman flashing into his mind's vision, sagging breasts and wafting female scents, wrinkles and all. He had never till this very moment even imagined such a repulsive thing.

The physician beamed and nodded as if he knew exactly what the General was thinking, and took another sip of the excellent brandy. He wanted to savour the liquor for as long as he could for it was so much better than the poison they served at the local tavern and it may be a long time before he had the opportunity to taste such a fine drop again. Not that abstinence was his chosen lot.

"But tell me Erich, these dreadful nightmares she keeps having?" Could the Doctor provide a reasonable answer for that? The dreams were growing in intensity and Laura was always more ill after a night of terrible dreams. The screaming put the whole of the household in disarray and it was happening now almost every night. It could not be allowed to go on for it had begun to shred everyone's nerves.

Swallowing the last of his brandy Voglreiter placed the empty glass on the silver tray beside the decanter. For a short moment he stared longingly at the cognac bottle and the amber liquid tempted him to another, but he resisted.

"Body weakens," Erich suggested, "mind gets active." Here he raised a hand up to his temple and made some quick loops with his fingers in the air. Laura's perfumes lingered on his fingertips and his hand hovered ever so briefly beneath his nostrils. He breathed in deeply but tried not to be obvious and the General looked at him and his eyebrows furrowed. Observing the military man's reaction Erich scoffed inwardly as he smoothed out the white moustache that bristled over his upper lip. Obviously, the General was not listening to anything he said. Perhaps if it made the man feel better he could resort to superstition for a cure and burn some incense, recommend the girl be bathed in urine or apply a leech or two. As there were, no plague victims about he could not suggest the poor girl drink some pus squeezed from a bubo. Would that make the General, if not Laura, feel better? Voglreiter almost laughed aloud. To the physician the General had always been a degree somewhat rodomontade, and that under the glitter of the golden buttons and shining epaulets was very little that characterised substance or even reality. In fact the Doctor harboured suspicions that the General's medals were superficial awards rather than merits won in battle, and who was he in any case to put forth an opinion about medical conditions? Contrarily the General felt vaguely insulted that the Doctor should think his ward was losing her mind. She had displayed no such symptoms previously so why the abrupt change in her health? The physician, despite his diagnosis was not filling the General's heart with much confidence. "She needs some iron, that's all," said Voglreiter emphatically, "green stuffs, red meat. Put some blood back into her!"

Isolation in this place had obviously made the poor child bloodless. The General put down his own cognac and looked to the floor, thinking how ridiculous it sounded that he should have to slaughter a cow and get cook to pick some beans and radicchio, and that was surely all it would take to make everything better! The whole business of Laura's illness was exasperating. He felt cross and this caused his conscience to begin to weigh heavy upon his mind. His expression made his face sag like a tired mask. These things the physician told him, they were no help at all.

"A drop of Port, perhaps, at night?" suggested the Doctor. Briskly he pushed back his chair from the little table realising that there was barely more he could add to that which he had already said. He stood up and walked over to another table by the entrance of the room to collect his hat, black cloak, gloves and medical bag.

"Well, Erich," said the General, "I'm glad you don't regard it as too serious a matter." But the General was not at all to be consoled and he took little solace from the Doctor's simplistic diagnosis. He did not know what would restore Laura's health let alone her spirit and this caused the gentleman an unpleasant fear, doubt and anxiety.

"She'll be all right," the Doctor reassured. "I'll ride over again in a day or two."

"I'm very grateful," the General told him, even though he was not certain that his words were true.

They walked to the front door and passed through the great columns and down the marble steps. There Erich hauled himself up upon his horse. The steed stamped impatiently at the ground and shook its mane.

"All right, Jupiter," said he, patting the animal's neck with a gentle, pacifying stroke. He saluted the General good day as he righted himself in the saddle and tapped his heels gently into the horse's flanks.

"Goodbye, Doctor, and thank you," General Spielsdorf called after as the physician placed his tall black hat upon his mostly bald head and rode up the neatly raked carriage road, leaving the General to stand like one abandoned at the great entrance of his great house.

Etiolated sunlight filtered in between the curtains and it washed over the carpet and made faded variegations of green and blue upon the bedroom wall and the high moulded ceiling. From Laura's window Marcilla looked down into the carriageway. She had come from her room when the Doctor had finished examining Laura over an hour ago. The beautiful stranger had let herself into Laura's bedroom unobserved and had taken a post at the window, her right hand raised, her slim fingers holding the drapery partly aside so that her view was unobstructed. There she had remained, still as a statue, looking out as the sun began its liquid gold descent from a powder blue sky. The light glanced pale off the marble skin of her cheek, made her lips a deep and dark and voluptuous red bow. Across the park and beyond the forest the mountain vista was a darker shade of glaucous blue, the light streaking shadows upon the grey-green tree trunks. The world was closing down for the day. Laura tossed about in her bed, moaning lowly in her fitful slumbers and thus she had not heard the other girl come into her room. Marcilla did not wake her. From somewhere in the house, perhaps from the great hall, a clock chimed the hour of three and then four and the reverberating echoes called mournfully through the mansion's vast rooms. She had watched the Doctor climb upon his horse and ride away and as she watched the man depart her face momentarily had become a mask of hated and fury. Marcilla had also watched as General Spielsdorf paused upon the edge of his marble entrance, her only movement was to release the curtain she held back and slowly lower her hand. The man cast his eye up to the high semi-circular arch of his niece's window. For a strange and very unsettling moment the General had imagined that there was a shape in the glass, a shape trapped within the reflections of sunlight, the vision of something that resembled wings. Those wings were unfolding, black and Vulcan, bejewelled with the final and lingering sparks of the dying day. The vision was obscure and it shifted and then passed into phantasy as if it had been fashioned for his eye from illusion. It must have been the reflection of clouds rippling in the surface of the glass. The vault empyrean was changing from blue to grape and he had frowned in the waning sunlight. The last of the star's golden rays filled up his eyes and blurred his vision. Yes, wings, like some hideous and fanciful beast from mythic lore. The General had strained his eyes and raised a hand to his brow to better his focus. From her high post Marcilla had smiled enigmatically but did not take a step away from behind the lace and velvet. She knew that from where the General stood he could not see her. Laura woke and yawned, and as she opened her eyes she beheld her beautiful new friend standing vigil by the window and her face lit up like a lantern in the shadows, and she smiled. Marcilla turned from the window at the sound of Laura's sighs and crossed languidly to the girl's bedside. With effort Laura moved higher in her bed, into a sitting position, stirring the pearly sheeting into foaming waves. She leaned back upon her pillows, but even this small movement made her ache with the strain. Yet Marcilla was there to make everything all right.

"Oh, Marcilla," said she, although her voice barely registered above a whisper, "you're so kind to me." Only Marcilla understood how she felt, unlike those repulsive men who ogled her flesh and were indecent. Laura's blue eyes were no longer the colour of cornflowers but had taken on a rather dull sheen. She reached out toward her companion and Marcilla sat softly on the bed beside her. The beautiful girl enfolded an arm about Laura's slim waist. Laura was upon the brink of telling her new friend about the indignities that had occurred, but Marcilla raised a finger up to Laura's mouth and traced its tip over the line of her lips. Laura sighed and smiled. She realised she did not have to tell Marcilla anything because Marcilla was wise to the workings of the world. Marcilla understood everything, she knew somehow the awful dealings of those men and she need not speak her thoughts aloud. She held Laura gently.

"I swear I shall die when you leave," Laura said at length, and she wished that Marcilla would never go away but stay with her always. Young Carl Ebhardt was but an eidolon now and she seemed hardly even to recall his name. There was no handsome Roman soldier, no Grecian god; no hero who could have commanded her heart now. Even Perseus in his fight for Andromeda's love was merely a painter's brush strokes on the vast canvas in the ballroom; Perseus' quest of the young female flesh was redundant and no longer relevant. His valour against the monster was as nothing if not recondite, for he could never hope to loosen the chains that bound the heart. Here and now there was only Marcilla, beautiful, beautiful Marcilla.

Marcilla held her friend closely and stroked her cheek. Laura was captivated and smiled in devotion. She adored how Marcilla's friendship had grown in the short space of her visit. And Laura never ceased to marvel at Marcilla's exquisite face and her affection. She was forever calm and serene and yet she gave the impression of strength and of worldliness, of knowing things that Laura could not. As if she knew the deepest of all the mysteries, felt the deepest of all emotions, of this truth Laura felt certain. Marcilla was there whenever she needed her and it was so wonderful that the lovely stranger had come into her life, and how her life had changed irrevocably. Marcilla had woken up Laura's mind, woken up her emotions, and awoken her soul. Since her sudden illness the girl had been by her side the whole time and it did not matter that ultimately Laura knew virtually nothing about Marcilla.

"Why," and the sudden thought made Laura speak the words unintentionally aloud, "I don't know your family name, where you come from or even how old you are!"

Though it really did not matter, for whoever Marcilla was and from wherever she hailed, and that must have been surely from the most astonishing dream, all that was relevant now was that she was here, with Laura, to hold her and to love her.

Marcilla simply smiled. "Does any of that matter?" she asked her weak companion.

Laura shook her head with a sigh, half ashamed that she should ask such a question.

"I shall never leave you, my dearest Laura" promised Marcilla, and she was so close and warm, leaning forward and placing a warm but gentle kiss upon the other girl's lips. The kiss was a prophecy of the love that the doomed alone shared, a feverish and yet wonderful yearning that contradicted Laura's adolescent desires for Carl Ebhardt. With merely a touch Marcilla consoled and soothed and raptured the soul. As Marcilla kissed Laura she brushed the girl's golden tresses away from her pale cheek, away from her white throat and from off her heaving bosom. Laura took in a sharp breath and felt her heart skip a beat. That heart was a trapped moth whose velvet wings flapped frantically against the dying lamp of the sun. Marcilla broke the kiss and stared into Laura's eyes. Lost in those eyes Laura felt the most peculiar of sensations, that she wanted Marcilla's kiss to never end, that she needed her embrace to hold her tight till all eternity should pass. It was an embrace that she felt she could not do without and it would kill her if she let go. Marcilla was a song made flesh, her face a singular star that glowed as a beacon glows to guide the soul gently from the travails of foolish love and foolish sorrow. Laura groaned and turned her head to the side. The beating of her heart banged away within her chest, it was like a hammer, violent and tumultuous. Marcilla bowed her lovely head and her auburn hair fell in a tide about Laura's face till the maiden thought she should die of a wonderful suffocation. The pendulous ruby the stranger wore about her neck brushed against Laura's bosom with a cold yet burning fire. That fire melted into Laura's flesh, all the way through to her pounding heart. Gracefully Marcilla's lips made a slow and indolent descent, sliding like velvet over her companions chin and neck till at last they came to rest upon the almond sliver of the girl's shoulder. How exquisite was the touch of those lips, and as they settled upon Laura's bare skin the moth shuddered madly in the suffused afternoon light. Marcilla's fingers curled about Laura's left breast, stroking the nipple under the lace of the young woman's nightdress till it hardened like a ripe red and glistening berry, precipitating a wave of ultimate pleasure. The glint in the fiery jewel blinked out and moth beat its wings into perdition shedding a rush of glittering scales in the cup of a hand that caught its flight. Laura swooned into a dreamy idyll, one of a passionate and voluptuous agony that took her again down into a glorious and all consuming darkness.

Carl had taken a twisting path through the forest, keeping his horse to a gentle canter. He had woken with a thought that he needed to investigate, for his peace of mind and for that of the General. He had tossed the verity of his destination over in his head, partly because his heart deftly understood that his position in the General's household now faced an unwelcome and formidable rival. That rival wore its own disguise, a beguiling and beautiful face, but it concealed a dark light and had attached itself to the young woman that Carl professed to love. On the surface of the issue his suspicions might have appeared trite and somewhat hypocritically distasteful, and Laura the pawn in a game of deceit, but its suggestion rang with the echo of a presupposed threat that reverberated emphatically about the chambers of his emotions and his manhood. He did not wish to lose his hold on the General's heart nor his fortunes, although Carl's own heart was twisting and his fortunes were changing in ways that he had not entertained before. There was the future at stake and the surety of that future went beyond the trivial longings of the flesh. The only way Carl saw that future made concrete was through marriage to the General's niece, and if that was what it took to secure it then that was what he was prepared to do. This beautiful stranger, Marcilla, had brought with her the seed of trouble when she had arrived, and that seed had seemed to flower so quickly that it had taken him quite by surprise. And he felt threatened by her.

Ebhardt rode north-west and after about half an hour passing between sunshine and shadow, he came upon the burned out skeleton of an old mill. The structure had half-collapsed in upon itself with vanes that were bent and black like great broken fingers. He halted his mount and stared at the great spur wheel. Some said that it was here that the bones of two young women had been discovered, or at least what was left of those bones. The stories told inferred the majority of those bones had been ground to powder, but for what purpose was rather vague. None of it had ever been verified and the ruin was now said to be haunted. The mill sat upstream from his destination, which was just beyond the forest, over the crest of a verdant delta. Carl spurred his horse onward from the mill and a few moments later he was standing on the hilltop looking down, his view following the stream. He tethered the horse's reins to a low hanging branch and the mare cropped the grass and rested after her ride, and Carl walked the short distance to his destination. The residence stood in a wide campestrian basin, surrounded by a moat upon which swans glided and hyacinth bloomed. The moat was fed by the stream that flowed between glade and forest from a high mountain lake. The water in the culvert was crystal clear, cold and fresh and fish with glinting scales darted under the lily pads. Ancient was the abode, not so much a house but rather the remnants of a keep that had stood on the site for possibly all these last six hundred years with various renovations and alterations added to it over those passing years. It had a peculiar aspect that bespoke of neither home nor stronghold and the morning sunlight shone above its towers making black hollows of its windows and a shadowy cavern beyond its open and rusted portcullis. The building hardly dominated its position in the landscape because of its lack of grandeur and its confused architecture, but castles were usually built on high ground and this one was not. This very fact alone reflected its ambivalence. Had it been constructed for defence or as a home? There was no real way of answering the question as the structure's history was so very vague. It was not an excessively large building, not if one compared it to General Spielsdorf's residence and estate, but it was strangely formidable, sitting low on the open plain and beyond the belt of the woods, its entrance across the dilapidated span of a drawbridge. Its symmetrical flanking towers were not exceedingly high either, but its walls were massy and solid, their rectangular continuity broken by pilaster buttresses that were neither spectacular nor decorative. That it appeared picturesque at all was somehow illusory, partly because of its reflection in the moat. As a feudal tenure it had once perhaps served as a domicile for the lord during rest from duty and it was difficult to consider it for little other function or purpose. The squat structure was sparse by way of fortification or defence and now only weeds poked through the stones. Ivy had grown in interlaced knots along the walls, covering stone and ashlars and it reached upward towards the turrets and the lightning rods. Strangely the ivy was withered and brown. The Baroness Meister who had lived here had died in mysterious circumstances some years ago, and it was rumoured that her death was by the hand of her son. Her mutilated corpse had been found laid out upon a velvet bier, but the son had not been found, he had disappeared. The details of her mutilation were rather gruesome and had become exaggerated over time; sharp objects had been driven into her flesh, into her hands, her breasts and between her thighs and there had been a lot of bloodshed. The stories that had grown up around the incident of her murder became even more elaborately horrific as the years had passed. Some whispered of the Devil's agency in the deed, others that the son had been a sick and deranged pervert. Upstairs in what must have been his very bedroom it was said there were chains and manacles riveted to the wall. Talk had supposed that these fetters were fashioned from pure silver and that the Baroness had held her son captive in that room. It might have been some sick and fetishist Oedipus game if any of it were grounded in truth. There had been rife gossip that the son had been corrupted in his travels abroad, that his youth had been defiled and his soul sadistically twisted by some vile perversion and that his mother, in her failed attempts to 'protect' him had unwittingly set in motion the machinery that would lead to her brutal death. And this had been linked to the business at the mill with the blackened skeletal remains of two young women. No one ever identified the girls and no one ever solved the mystery, but it was speculated that they had met their fates at the vile hands of the Baroness's depraved son and that he had set fire to the mill in order to conceal the crimes. The great house had eventually fallen into the hands of the Baroness's legal representatives as no living relative could be found. Because of this it had been untenanted for quite some years and had fallen into disrepair. No one seemed interested in acquiring the estate and no one ever went there. It was an abandoned property, the domicile of owls and stray cats, of spiders and rats. It was certainly news that the place had people living in it again. Carl could not help but feel a sense of foreboding as he passed over the rotting drawbridge and through the gatehouse into the abandoned courtyard. There he stood glancing about and not knowing exactly what he expected to find, if anything. For a moment he contemplated entering inside, to find the infamous room and the wrought silver shackles, but he could not bring himself to do that. As no one had hailed his arrival Carl did not bother to call out because, as he had rightly suspected, the house had long been empty. He had realised that the mysterious Countess, Marcilla's mother, if she had purchased the residence, did not live in it at all, yet why the subterfuge? She had accepted the General's invitation to Laura's birthday party after having sent a messenger in her stead to acknowledge her move into the neighbouring estate. It had of course come as a surprise to the General that anyone would have purchased that particular piece of real estate, especially as it was attached to no farming land or workable industry aside from the derelict mill. As a holiday home it was particularly unsuitable, requiring an excessive amount of funds to affect the repairs necessary to bring it up to a habitable standard. Carl was at a loss to understand. He looked upwards to the broken windows and squinted as the morning light glanced from their coloured slivers, throwing pale but jagged rainbows upon the flagstones. Up there had been the bedroom where the Baroness had locked up her son in those silver chains. She had lived in fear of the man who wore the skin of her son, and if her fears were truth, then those fears had caught her and destroyed her. Maybe that was it, the answer to the mystery of the Baroness Meister pointed to the enigma of the Countess, that one could hardly trust one's own blood let alone a perfect stranger with the hearts of our loved ones. And why did Carl not trust Marcilla when he hardly even knew her? But Carl only smiled dryly at this thought for he was not going to let his fears destroy his future. Yes, it was true, he admitted it at least to himself that he was concerned for Laura, but it was Marcilla that bothered him more, angered him even on some unspeakably hostile level. The Doctor could not understand Laura's illness, sudden as it had been, and the General was beside himself with fear and guilt. Ebhardt wondered how much of all this concern was based on fears that the General's idyll should be discovered and his respectability come undone. It had all come about so suddenly and had thrown everything, all of his plans out of kilter. And then there was Marcilla, remote and haughty, beautiful and mysterious, who did not descend from her room till late in the day, who had moved so close to Laura in such a very short space of time. A weird and inexplicable darkness had entered all of their lives. The desolation of the Baroness Meister's castle had piqued his curiosity, but Carl was hardly satisfied. When he returned he would tell the General what he had discovered and then the General would need to question his beautiful guest. Yet even once he did, how could the equilibrium of life ever be properly restored?

Late that afternoon Ebhardt reined his dappled grey mare to a halt and jumped down from the saddle. He walked the horse to a groom, who took the bridle and led the horse to water and feed. The General was standing on the steps of his house, waiting for Carl.

"I've been to the Bullheimer's farm, sir. The new barn is ready for use." The Bullheimer's were tenants who farmed dairy cattle on the higher pastures. The family produced their own delicious Graukäse, and the milk provided for all the dairy products that graced the General's table, and for a good deal that was traded in the local town market. Ebhardt had been supervising the barn's construction, but even this preoccupation had not diffused his thoughts of Laura. He had asked to see her a few days earlier and he had been denied. The refusal had come from Laura herself and the words had oddly wounded Carl's pride. He did not understand what could be the matter until he pondered upon it and was spiked by a peculiar stab of jealousy. This request by the young man to see Laura had only further bewildered the General and so the wheel of guilt and confusion made another revolution and spun further unhappiness over the estate.

The General signalled a greeting to Carl with a slight raise of the hand he but did not smile. It seemed very little would induce a smile now. The weather was beginning to change and it was as if the colder season were etching itself into the emotional cold within both men. The barn had been erected just in time as a safe haven for the cattle during winter. The General maintained his severe and unhappy countenance; Ebhardt's face was likewise painted with concern. A gust of chill breath rippled over the wide stone stairs and pulled at Ebhardt's riding cloak, a brittle leaf stuck in its folds.

"Good, good," replied the General and turned away. He appeared distracted and began to return inside, almost dismissing young Ebhardt without any further words, without really having said anything at all. Carl flinched. This seemed so out of character for General Spielsdorf that it hurt some place inside Carl's heart. He arrested the General's flight with an abrupt question.

"How is Laura, sir?"

The General paused, his expression set in stone, his fists clenching up in futile imprecation. It looked as if he were grinding his teeth. His face wore a mask of suppressed anger.

"May I see her?"

Ebhardt could almost hear the General accusing him of wanting his cake and to eat it too, but Carl had moved beyond that now because he understood his feelings for Laura had become genuine.

"No," remarked the older man and Ebhardt cast his glance to the ground. He did not want to look the General in the face but he had not seen Laura for a week now and by report he had been told she was ill, gravely ill. If only he were permitted to go to her, to see her, he would take her hand and stroke her silken cheek and for certain she would respond. If anything were to happen to Laura and he not be permitted to see her... Like a weird and black cloud he could not stem the thought from rising in his mind. Likewise the General could not hide his own anxieties. General Spielsdorf turned back and stared into Carl's face, shaking his worried head. He had opened up a nest of problems, and all because of desire. No real thought regarding the feelings and the pain this ménage had created had been spared for the girl who now lay sick in her bed upstairs.

"No," he said lowering his tone a little and walking down the steps to stand opposite his young manager. "I don't understand her. She doesn't really want to see anyone except..."

The name froze up in his mouth and refused to leave his tongue. If he said it aloud the General knew the unhealthy implication it would arouse.

"Marcilla," Ebhardt spoke the girl's name where the General could not, and he could hardly suppress the envy that spilled from his tongue. The old man blanched. A suppressed fury lit the inner depths of the General's eyes, the fading beams of the close of day burned there with a red and vehement glow. The General's lips drew into a thin line, pulling in his cheeks so that he looked almost cadaverous.

"Yes," he almost spat the affirmative out as if it were poison. Some part of the General's soul hated the beautiful stranger, loathed and despised her despite her graceful demeanour and her lovely, seductive exterior. There was something under that alabaster skin, the General didn't know what, but he connected the arrival of Marcilla into his home with the wasting malady that now afflicted his niece. He also suspected that his lovely houseguest contained the seed in the core of her being of his own undoing; that she knew his secrets and in his paranoia he hated her even more.

"Marcilla seems devoted to her," said Ebhardt, the statement ringing with the sting of jealousy.

General Spielsdorf could barely mask the look of confusion that tore across his features. It was as if the bell of doom had sounded its peal in his ears, and that doom was spelled for all of them, clear and strident and foolish in their duplicitous deceits. At the moment he did not want to think about the foul implications of it all. He could hardly confess the possibility of any filthy accusation about the purity of his niece, especially in the light of his own proclivities, but he did not feel the same for Marcilla. That girl was worldly, some would say sophisticated some would say degenerate, but if anything she was something other than what she appeared, he was sure of that. On several occasions she had looked upon him with a strange and austere gaze and run her cold blue eyes all the way over his body as if she were mapping his frame and seeking for fissures in its surface. She didn't have to say anything to him, for the General knew instinctively that Marcilla understood him more than any words she might articulate. The truth was really that she said very little. She conveyed most of her verbal conversations only to Laura and when she spoke directly to the General her words were minimal but her form spoke plenty. But she was afire with a very confidant body language, lithe like a serpent, beautiful and dangerous, wise beyond her twenty odd years. The awful reality in this was that she did not know the General at all, how could she have known him? But she knew his interior, that was beyond doubt and that was disturbing, for it made the General question himself. What made him think she knew of his love for Carl? He had thought this very thing just the other afternoon, not long after she had descended from her room and had refused afternoon tea. Their conversation had been brief and she was going up to see how Laura was feeling. And her eyes had arrested the General's when he had suggested that she should leave his niece to rest alone. Her look had seemed to penetrate his soul, to challenge him, to mock his feeble authority. The General had stumbled at the post and knew that here was a power he had never anticipated. Wordlessly Marcilla had slid away from him, ignoring him as if he hardly mattered, hardly existed. She had walked slowly and deliberately up the stairs, the shape of her flesh shimmering under the gossamer fabric of her gown. Upon the gallery she had paused briefly, timing her step deliberately and seemed to smile as she glanced back. This look of subtle recognition had made the General shiver, and Marcilla had moved up the stairs, one slow step at a time as if she were drawing out his impotent fury, and then she shut herself up in Laura's bedroom leaving the General to deliberate his own sullied mistrustful conscience and to leave her well enough alone. The General's mind had begun to come apart at that very moment. Was he simply imaging this feat of prophecy she seemed to project, that should he challenge her he would pay dearly? Was he being unreasonable and how could one person, no, how could one young woman affect such power over him, he who had commanded armies? Was this was all a vile trickery or was he imagining it all?

"Nevertheless," he said to Carl, and his words were hard edged and resolute, "I shall be glad when the Countess comes back for her!"

"It seems strange, sir, does it not, that the Countess has not yet come back for her daughter? Who knows where she has gone and for how long? One fears that something might have happened..."

"Please, Carl, tell me something that I do not already know," returned the General sharply. "Do you think that her whereabouts does not plague me both day and night? I do not even know where to begin looking for her!"

Carl's expression only emphasised his notion of the General's embarrassing and impetuous foolishness in this matter.

"Have you asked Marcilla?"

"Do you think me a fool?" the General snapped. "The girl protests much, that she knows very little. She says that mother's 'dear friend' resided somewhere in Moravia, but the details of where exactly were sketchy and Marcilla was very evasive. Whenever I broach the subject Marcilla seems deliberately to be of no help at all. Why, the last time I enquired, she seemed to earnestly express a yearning desire to go home but I am not convinced that she was sincere! However, I feel certain that home is definitely not the old Baroness's house. I am not so sure that her gesture was genuinely heartfelt for there is something strange about that girl and I do not like her. I have taken the liberty of writing to a friend of mine who does reside in Moravia, Baron Hartog. He has connections and we will see if he can shed any light upon the mystery of these people."

The General turned away, biting his lip for he could not know what should be done. The power to do anything was beyond him now, and maybe even beyond anything that anyone could do. As the twilight seeped its mauve light into violet and choked the failing day into night, General Spielsdorf cursed and strode inside and Carl was left to stand upon the empty portico in the cold afternoon wind and pray that some deity would see everything to right.

Inside his vast house, the General began pacing about the vast emptiness of his ballroom, a space that plainly echoed his vulnerability with its stark emptiness. He looked upon the great reproduction of Perseus and for a short moment his eye followed the hero's line and form on the canvas. Perseus was beautiful, ripe with bursting youth and the favour of the gods, but he held in his hand the Gorgon's severed head, the symbol of female power that did not belong in this world in which the General existed. That symbol had the power to turn a person to stone if you let it, to drain you away and leave you brittle and that was the very reason why the Gorgon's head was severed. Man should not allow a woman to control him, not ever. That idea was wrong and unthinkable, untenable. Like Perseus, Carl had been given whatever power he now possessed, but power was fleeting and the hero was still to fight for the imperilled heroine. Carl had not really come upon that power by his own stead; the General had provided all of the weapons including the lovely Andromeda, chained to the rock, threatened by the monster. Could Perseus really save her by closing up his real emotions and causing the world to turn into stone around him? Was Carl really that unfeeling? General Spielsdorf did not have the answer to any of this at all. Bringing the young man here to be with him always had ultimately all amounted to naught. It had been a vain and idyllic dream and he would be left with nothing. There had been so much life to be had, so much love to be sampled, or so he had presumed and now there was only the ghostly echo of laughter and of lost happiness.

He recalled into his memory one particular day, about a year ago, a rendezvous that had happened right here, right in this very drawing room. Laura had been home but retired for an afternoon rest, and the servants had been given a day's leave. That had left Carl and the General alone. The General had waited for the young man in the drawing room to come in from the stables. And when Carl had arrived with his own scents comingled with thick equine odours, his clothes a little soiled from his labours, his skin glistening with sweat, the General had embraced him fervidly and they had kissed. He recalled the slow descent as he fell into a throne-like chair with scrolled arms and painted trims and beautifully worked tapestry, fashioned after the style of an ancient pharaoh's throne. Desire had given him a clumsy speed, and although he had hurriedly unbuttoned his flies and peeled his trousers down to his ankles he seemed to feel that the acts of doing so took a year and forever. Freed of his stiff clothing the General had curled his fingers around those armrests. The General's sex has swelled instantly, gorged purple to match the colour of the silk cravat that he still wore at his throat. His stiffness was tipped by a crystalline gem of glistening liquid and he wanted Ebhardt's soft, wet mouth to engulf its length. His lips were forming words that were supposed to entice Ebhardt, mouthing whispered obscenities and carnal demands. Such feeble encouragements, but Ebhardt did not need them, did not require tempting, for he had already removed his own clothing and scattered shirt and pants upon the Persian rug and knelt naked before the General. He traced his lips along the older man's tensing thigh and Ebhardt could feel the pounding rhythm of his own heart awed and beating in confused anticipation. He knew what General Spielsdorf liked; the thrill of quick gratification, of lust; there was no surprise in this. Ebhardt placed the tip of his tongue against the lower end of the General's sex and there the wet organ began slow gyrating circles. The General gasped and stroked Carl's jet black hair. Carl let one hand glide slowly up the General's naked calf; his mouth trailing a warm caress over that place where staff and testes met, trailing icy sparks along the taut, quivering skin and only gently sipping. The General remembered how he had groaned and writhed and cried out profanities. And Ebhardt had responded by placing the tip of his finger at the entrance to the General's flesh and how the General had responded, going taut, his muscles all bunched up like corded rope, for the agony was supreme and delicious. As Ebhardt knelt before him the young man's parched mouth slid up the length of that stiff flesh. Inch by slow inch, agonisingly closer, nipping and tugging at the thatch of hairs Ebhardt's lips finally reached the fold of silken skin at the apex of the fleshly spear. With a kiss that skin peeled back and the throbbing head of the General's member glistened in the candlelight. The General had almost wished to die then, and die of pleasure, running his steely fingers through Carl's locks, gripping the younger man's head and pushing it down upon his crotch, telling his lover to devour, telling him to take him to paradise. But it was too quick, too soon, and trailing a sticky drop of clear fluid his hardened member had pulsed against Carl's cheek in ejaculation. Even as he spent the General pressed his shaft insistently against Carl's red lips, his fluids were hot and Ebhardt tasted their salty piquancy. Ebhardt looked up at the General and he observed a mask of suppressed agony all overwritten with torment and ecstasy. So Ebhardt had withdrawn and smiled, and instead had begun a stroke with his tongue, long, slow and intense, along the silky hairs that sprinkled the flat expanse of his mentor's belly. Slowly his tongue glided across the hardened berry of a nipple and then raised higher they stopped just short of a kiss. Ebhardt's own senses had been coiled like a spring, and even he had been teetering at the edge of his climax. All this and the General was moaning and babbling stupid, disjointed rubbish about how Carl must have lived for his flesh to show him the pleasures of the world wrapped into one shattering, unbelieving moment, leave him begging for more. But that could only happen in a dream, that was the truth of it, really, and all this was an eidolon of some damned and forgone moment of idyll. Sadly the fabric of that life was coming undone and he couldn't understand why. And that thought brought him unwillingly back to the moment that was now. He was painfully aware that the very sound of his own footsteps echoed a portent that trod Laura closer and closer upon the cortege of her doom and now his guilt over Carl and for her wellbeing, for her very life was confusing his heart and head. Every moment of indecision took the young woman nearer and nearer to death. There was one other here though whose mystery he felt he could, he must unravel, and he would breach the sanctity of Marcilla's room to do just that, for he could not take the strain of it any longer. There was something terribly connective to that legend of the Gorgon's head of writhing snakes that linked the lovely girl who lurked upstairs, who always hid in the shadows in the room at the end of the corridor. The one and only person that Laura would see, rejecting all others. The General had begun to suspect that under Marcilla's beautiful skin festered the Gorgon's ugliness. General Spielsdorf had grown into this suspicion and his doubts had evolved into a horrible metaphor. Who was she and _what_ was she? Marcilla, mysterious and enigmatic was no less playing the cipher, the catalyst that had brought about the abrupt changes to this world, this estate, and the General's love even! And with the catalyst came the dreaded implication that Ebhardt had turned his own heart to stone, turned against the General for a mere girl, his own niece, but even in that the General still knew something else. He had to know the truth even if it proclaimed his own ruin. He would force the girl to tell him that truth, although he was unsure just how he was going to accomplish that feat.

The General did not see Marcilla that evening and as the night enveloped the mansion so fled his courage. So much for his prowess in battle that he found the slip of a girl daunting in the extreme and thoughts about his niece's safety and wellbeing became a secondary afterthought following his love for Ebhardt. But that love was failing to come from the young man and the General was troubled. Had that failing been only recent, or had it been brooding over the years of their friendship? The General did not like to think of the young man as mercenary, that couldn't be true. He had always spoiled Ebhardt and treated him, and he thought that Carl reciprocated his feelings. What had changed and when had it changed? Perhaps he was simply a blind old fool whose gleaming medals and years of service were nothing but a shield against a respectability that could never be obtained. To lose Ebhardt was a ghastly thought unto itself, to lose both the young man and Laura would prove ruinous. He did not retire that night but sat brooding in his drawing room and as the dark hours pushed the clock closer to the dawn the General called upon the housemaid. The young girl was hardly awake when she appeared, stray hairs had escaped from their pins and her bonnet was not quite straight. The maid tried to stifle a yawn as she drew a shawl about her bosom.

The General snapped irritably, "Fetch Ebhardt immediately. Tell him to come to me, here."

"Now, sir?" she questioned, observing that the rising sun was still a good hour away.

"Yes, now!" retorted the General, jarring the young woman awake. It was unlike the General to be so rude. She ran off, and General Spielsdorf waited and paced and waited some more and all the while a chill wind chased the shadows around the park outside, and the rest of the household slept. When Ebhardt arrived, he tethered his mare to a hedge. The front door was open and a scattering of crisp leaves had been tumbled into the candlelit entrance. Ebhardt strode into the house. The General stood in the drawing room door and did not speak. Carl walked up to his side. Here they looked at each other and the stillness only amplified the emptiness of it all, of the house and the heart. Ebhardt was tired for he too had been unable to sleep.

"Tell me, Carl," the General began, ushering the young man within and closing the door. A silver candle tree flickered by the door, its ten candles dripping tallow onto a gadrooned tray. "Where did you go yesterday?"

"I did a little investigating," said Ebhardt, and he held his forehead as if his head ached. "I rode over to the old Baroness's house, to look around."

General Spielsdorf's countenance sparked up as he heard the words. Yes, trust Ebhardt to think on his feet, he could always count on the young man to be resourceful in a time of crisis, had not that been part of his attraction, the spark of will and to be resolute in that will? The General reprimanded himself for being so curt, reached over, and grasped Carl's forearm. Carl glanced down and gently retracted his arm. It was strange now to feel the General's touch, it seemed unappealingly fragile and a vague part of Ebhardt's mind no longer desired it at all. Even the promise of living the comfortable life the General could have ensured had begun to lose its appeal. The time for such things had rapidly disappeared and it seemed that the beautiful stranger, Marcilla, had precipitated the changes that were now darkening their lives like a thundercloud.

"Tell me then, what did you find?"

"The house is empty, sir, as I suspected, a ruin. It looks as if no one has lived there since that dreadful business with the Baroness, and that was supposedly years ago."

"Empty," echoed General Spielsdorf, his anger swelling up inside his frame like a terrible storm.

"But there was something else, Sir, something very strange. There is a private chapel in the old place that looks as if it were used recently."

"Used?" Confusion piqued the General's expression. "Used to pray? Used… how do you mean?"

"If you believe in God, then it would seem that something vile and blasphemous took place there and that his house was desecrated. I am not religious, as you know, Sir, and I cannot say for sure, but there was evidence that something monstrous had occurred. Upon the altar was a cross, a golden cross with pasted rubies and sapphires, a beautifully wrought thing but it had been inverted, turned upside down and it was dripping with a sticky black fluid. There was a golden chalice on the altar too and it was half filled with what could only have been blood. The blood was encrusted and gone black, spilled all down the side of the goblet. There were flies and maggots and the blood stank. It was this blood that had gone ropey on the cross. Not far from the altar, discarded over the broken pews in the front was a sheet, or a shroud, a filthy piece of grave cloth that was stained with this gore. I found a knife too, a great curved blade with a jewelled hilt. It too was smeared in blood. And the dust looked as if it had been disturbed, as if a large and heavy object had been dragged through it and positioned before the altar."

"My God!" was all that the General could manage upon hearing the information and it was a flicker of disgust that curled Ebhardt's lip as he recalled the rank smell of the gore.

"The blood had splashed upon the altar and on the flagstones, gone black, revolting. There was a lot of it, as if some beast had been sacrificed. It was a very disturbing scene, Sir. Yet I found no evidence of anything else. And although I looked it seemed to me that the house has not been inhabited, at least not since its occupation by the old Baroness."

"What does all of this mean, Carl? Are you suggesting that some hideous satanic ritual has been performed? What are we facing and what are we to do?"

Ebhardt could not offer a reply. The general shook his head and rubbed at his eyes, grimacing. He was so very tired and these new developments only served to exhaust him more. After a silence, he looked into Ebhardt's face. "What has happened to us…?"

"What happens to everyone when the world changes?" said he. "You change with the world or you crumble."

"What are you talking about?" pleaded the General, his gaunt features etched painfully in the shadows thrown by the candlelight.

General Spielsdorf reached forward to clasp Ebhardt's arm, but the fellow drew aside and shook his head.

"You know that what we do is wrong," he said lowly, "and that because of Laura we couldn't go on as we have been. It is too risky and deceitful. It doesn't feel right anymore."

"Why not?" the General asked.

"Why? Are you demented?"

"Isn't right," the General retorted with a derisive laugh. "You think me an old fool. You sleep in my bed, plot behind my back, you scheme to secure your position in my household, even as my lover and my son!"

"Be fair, you wanted me and I gave you plenty," Ebhardt returned, his jaw set in a grimace, his body beginning to quake in a rising tide of anger.

"So who used who?" the General questioned, raising his eyebrows in a haughty gesture that implied his gentile superiority. The young man lowered his head and his voice.

"Does it matter anymore? I do not think we should see each other like that from now on. To be truthful, now that this has happened to Laura I don't even know my own heart."

"Please, Carl," the General's voice abruptly cracked, "don't you feel anything?"

"I don't know what I feel anymore. Everything is upside down. I did not think to fall in love with Laura, believe me, and for a while, I thought that I could have you both. But it is ghastly! I have begun to feel like the parasite I am! I think it best that I should leave the estate."

"No!" begged the General, "I cannot do without you, even if it means you marry the girl, just as long as you never go away!" And upon those words, the General clasped Carl in an embrace but the other gently pushed him off, but even as he did this, they heard the scream, a dreadful shriek that tore the house asunder.

"Laura!" Carl called out, and both he and General Spielsdorf burst through the drawing room door. The old man did not hesitate in his ascent to the gallery above, Carl following two steps at a time. The dishevelled housemaid appeared in the upstairs hallway and tripped in her step. The General pushed her aside and the girl was left clutching at her apron, and trembling in fear at the sound of the screams. Ebhardt paused for a moment to reassure the young woman, but she shrunk away as the General swept past them both and bolted down the hall. At the far end of the corridor General Spielsdorf halted outside Laura's room, his hand poised near the door handle, but he appeared immobile. Ebhardt hurried to him and by the time he reached the older man the screaming from Laura's room had stopped.

"General Spielsdorf?" Carl asked as he looked from the General's stilled hand to his anguished face. "What is it? What's the matter?"

"It's... cold," replied the General, and his demeanour bespoke that he had temporarily lost himself, he hardly seemed to recognise Carl at all. The housekeeper had appeared and was holding a lamp, she looked frightened, and she reached forward to grasp the door handle.

"No!" cried the General and he stayed her hand. "Don't touch it!"

The woman gave a confused whimper but stood to the side and turned her face to young Ebhardt. Ebhardt stared at the General. When the General raised his hand the fingertips were red with welts and his eyes seemed to tell that he could not do what Carl must, and that was to breach the door. The handle had turned to ice and the door would not budge open. The welts were frozen burns and Ebhardt understood and gently pushed the General aside. He quickly braced his strong, lithe body and then he thrust his shoulder against the sturdy timber. The panel shook but did not give and the cold was like a glacial flow that stung his flesh through the fabric of his cloak and shirt. Ebhardt braced and thrust again, this time with more force and the door burst inward opening its maw upon a room black as pitch. The housekeeper raised her lamp. In the lamplight the bedroom became a turbulent maelstrom of murky chiaroscuro flickering that swam with grey mist. The temperature was glacial and their breath gelled in the dark airs. The window was closed and the heavy velvet drapes were drawn upon the world. Laura lay in a swoon across the quilt, shivering, and her bosom was heaving in her nightdress as she gasped to get a breath. Her hair was a copper tangle all knotted and matted and her face was the colour of chalk.

"Oh, please, no! No, go away," she muttered feebly, gasping rapidly and clawing at her sheets. "No, no, no!" There was such agony in that one word repeated over and over as to rend open the very soul. The dream had infused her mind, the nightmare had taken over reality, and with one final and exhausting effort Laura pulled herself up into a half-sitting position, beheld Carl and her uncle and screamed the word again. It were as if she recognised her fate in that moment, a fate that would have her powerless and forever chained to the will of these men. It was as if she knew of their illicit love and how this had doomed her. She wanted only Marcilla to be with her, and she used the last of her strength to rail at the General before collapsing limply like a rag doll into her wave of tumbled, cold sheets.

Her uncle and Carl both moved quickly to the bedside, the housekeeper bringing the lamp closer, she was beginning to cry as much as she tried to contain her terror. They looked upon the young woman and Carl saw for the first time what change had been wrought in this girl over the short space of a week. This was not Laura, no; here was a wasted and emaciated creature that was whiter than the sheets upon which she lay. Only days ago she had been dancing at her birthday party, she had been laughing. She had been telling him how much she loved him. Now she lay like a broken doll, she seemed to have no blood, no life and she shivered like a leaf coming loose from the twig. It cut strangely at his heart and he could not contain the gasp of shock that accompanied the realisation of his guilt. Laura had collapsed upon the final shriek, collapsed in exhaustion and to find her in such a state was distressing enough, but what was even more horrible was the one word that leaked from her lips and that word was a name and the name was "Marcilla".

Into the forest the dappled mare plunged, her rider gritting his teeth, the rising moon spilling molten silver through the trees and into their path. Ebhardt tapped his riding crop against the mare's flank, goading her to fly like the wind, for every second counted, every breath was of the utmost urgency. He knew the forest byways like the back of his hand and he now took the shortest way that he knew through the woods, ducking under low reaching branches, skimming over felled trunks. The mare's hooves pounded the earth, spraying dirt left and right, her nostrils flared and she champed at her bit, but Ebhardt rode and rode and a host of shadows chased him through the woods, pursued him with dark and strangling fingers. Within the passing of a quarter hour he rode into the village square, there to jump down from his mount and cross quickly to a door beneath a rickety eave. A dog barked in an alley and the water splashed from the fountain. These were the only sounds in this late hour of the early morning, for the tavern had yet to open its doors and no one stirred in their homes. In the fading starlight, on the distant hilltop, the vague outline of a castle ruin dominated the skyline, its turrets engulfed in a blanket of rising cloud. Ebhardt reached out and took hold of the knocker, a lion's head cast in iron with a ring through its nose, and thudded loudly upon the door. There was no immediate response. As he waited Carl gave a cursory glance upward toward that granite palace on the hill, but the night drew a veil over its edifice and the glimmering stars and the view was lost. He repeated the action of knocking upon the door. Impatiently his mare pulled back on her bridle. "Doctor?" Carl beckoned up to the window where the dying moon shone it final rays upon the glass. A little wind troubled the dark velvet green leaves of pink and yellow auricular in the flower box under the eave. Up there, on the floor above a sound stirred and a jaundiced lamplight flickered in the dark space of the casement. A shape wavered behind the lace. The Doctor, dressed in his night attire and cap opened the window and looked down at Ebhardt.

"Doctor," called Ebhardt, "you must come at once."

The General took Laura by the hand and knelt beside her on the bed. Both their faces were lit by the steady flame of the lamp that had been placed on the bedside table. Laura was so cold, so cold that the General thought he had never felt living human flesh of that temperature before. It terrified him. And worse, he reprimanded himself on another shockingly subliminal level, one that taunted him with the notion that he really did not know what warm female flesh felt like at all. As the thought spiked his brain it made him wince and turn sharply, as if someone else were in the room, someone else fingering his mind. He was horrified and of course there was no one there but the housekeeper. Yet it was so true, he did not know because he had never been married and the army only placed you in the company of men, young men with crisp fine bodies and newly flexed muscles. There was only the knowledge of young men's skin and scent, of their lips on your hard, pulsing flesh, of their heat and their violence as they took you to Gehenna. It began a sick feeling in the General's guts that his head should be filled with such filthy self-deprecating thoughts at this moment of crisis. He had done all he could possibly have done, he had nurtured this girl, he had loved this girl, he had even consented that Carl should marry her, done all to hold the balance and keep his love close by. He had called the Doctor when her symptoms had first appeared but that had availed ridicule. Was it that the General had become a parody of himself, was the scaffolding of his life collapsing about his head? The General had begun to feel desperate, and the fabric of existence was slipping through his grasp. Ebhardt was riding like the wind to fetch the Doctor right now, and he prayed that the physician would not be too late. If Laura could be saved then there might be hope yet, all might not be destroyed. Laura seemed to squirm under his touch, to resist with the little energy she had left in her mortal coil, but he did not let go of her hand. It was like she did not want his touch, like she knew and understood the true monster within and how it had in reality used and disregarded her heart. On her pillow she writhed and shuddered, gasping, her lips the colour of the pillow, the pillow the colour of the sheets, the sheets the colour of an all engulfing and concealing mist through which they all must pass only to emerge with one of them lost. Only the housekeeper stood by the General now and her face was a knot of helpless agony upon whose cheek flowed unstoppable tears. The General barely retained his own composure. At his back the housekeeper hovered, speechless, unable to move for her fright. Laura's room was so cold and the General looked to the window, but it was closed. His fingers hurt from the cold burns he had sustained when he had tried the door handle, but despite this he took the girl's shivering hand in his own and raised it to his own shivering lips. As Laura's eyes flickered upon her recognition of him, she knew that the gesture was as desperate as it was token. She recoiled in a jarring movement and her eyes proclaimed that she knew somehow that she had been betrayed.

"Marcilla," she gasped, her voice cracking like a windowpane, becoming more desperate, rising to a shriek as she tried to rise above her pillow. "Marcilla!"

"Calm yourself, Laura," the General told her, gently pushing her back down, his eyes flashing bright with a ghastly anger that shocked the housekeeper into movement. "Fetch her!" he spat at the woman, his command vehement with a barely suppressed rage, and the housekeeper dashed toward the door, whimpering as she went, the lamp she carried splashing pale orange light in her wake. She ran down the corridor, its red carpet like a monster tongue in the lamplight and came up to Marcilla's door where she paused hesitantly before she knocked.

"Marcilla?" she whispered, but there was no reply. "Marcilla?"

The woman opened the door. Inside the bedroom was silent and empty and only the draperies stirred in a gentle wind. One of the windows was opened. The housekeeper ran to the portal to close it, and looked out into the failing dark. The night was upon the brink of surrender, the first glow of the coming dawn was a rosy tinge beyond the brake and the mountains. Down there, hiding in the trees, she imagined she saw something flickering in the dying night, a shaded thing, a devil on horseback, with eyes like cinders and all wrapped up in an adumbrate spread of blackest pitch. The shape sat astride a shining black steed with hooves that cast argent sparks and nostrils that belched red flame. And either rider or horse, in the shifting black she could not be sure which, had wings, great and wide, wings like a fallen angel. The angel looked upon her with burning eyes. She clenched her fingers into a fist and the fist went to her mouth so as to plug the scream that was rising in her throat. In terror she fled back to Laura's room.

"Marcilla," called Laura, her voice trailing off to a choked whisper.

The General did not know what to do, what to say, or how to be of any comfort. "She'll be here very soon," he lied as he stroked her cheek, but Laura turned her face away. A gasp made him twist his head and as he turned the housekeeper appeared with a face as white as winter's pall, with quivering lips of chalk. She seemed unable to speak and she was pointing down the hall in the direction of Marcilla's room.

"Well?" the General demanded coldly, getting up and striding up to the trembling woman. "Where the devil is she?"

The woman quaked in terror for she thought for one horrible moment that the angry man might strike her in his fury. And that word, 'devil', that was exactly what she had seen outside in the park.

"I don't know, sir," she stuttered, "her room is empty. I..."

"I am here."

Marcilla's voice cut the housekeeper's sentence short. Startled, General Spielsdorf jerked his eyes toward the open bedroom door. Marcilla stood in the doorframe, her body dressed black from toe to crown. They faced each other and their eyes bespoke a terrible impasse and a dreadful tension. That tension would soon snap and whip them to its savage conclusion.

"I went to the chapel," said Marcilla, her eyes growing bigger as she spoke, "to pray." She moved toward the bed, Laura gasping as she held out her arms, inviting the last embrace of a lover.

Marcilla moved forward, lithe and predatory she stepped past the terrified housekeeper and barely even looked upon the General. The girl in the bed gave one last shudder and was still and the General groaned aloud and wanted to call the beautiful stranger a liar but realised the weight of such an accusation.

"You may open the curtains", said Marcilla in a cold and emotionless monotone, her expression blank. "It is daylight now," and as she looked upon the cowed and trembling vision of the General she pulled herself up, straight like a soldier. "She is dead." Upon this ghastly declaration the General gasped and whimpered in his defeat. Alongside the bed Marcilla drew, rippling as a black wave ripples upon the ocean of night, and her eyes did not leave the General's. At that moment the night surrendered its hold upon the earth and Apollo's first golden spears filled the semicircular entablature of the window. It lit the inner pilasters with two columns of fire and the glass shone in a blinding aureate flash. The housekeeper pulled the curtains wide with a shaking clasp and the morning light spilled a river of gold upon Marcilla's skin. The beautiful stranger flinched like one stung and her shadow responded, leaping as if burnt by a flame and writhing upon the wall, tripping and flickering madly, all wild movement and animalistic, imaginary, a hippogryph with wide and spreading wings. The silhouette of her voluptuous frame caught alight and she resembled a black candle, her skin the wick, her auburn hair the flame. The coldness in the room leaked suddenly away and Laura's eyes rolled back in her head. She smiled in adoration as she dropped her arms, knowing that Marcilla, her true love, had come to her in her last moment. Marcilla did not even look at her. Discarded but filled with divine glory the young girl fell upon her pillow with a pacified groan, her hair a ragged yellow pennant upon the satin, a thin ribbon of scarlet seeping from under her left bosom. The red stained the bed linen but no one saw. It was the last drop of Laura's blood and in that drop were the stains of Marcilla's triumph and the General's loss. For he had invited her in, invited the monster to warm itself in the glow of his hearth. And she had known his inner heart all along, he knew this and she had fed upon his deceptions and his follies so as to glut at the spring of his foolishness. The vaporous airs in the room swirled as they dissipated and the General's breath froze in his throat. Marcilla's twisted shadow spilled over the bed, over Laura's corpse and settled like a fly upon the General's lips. The housekeeper seeing the monstrous shadow cried out in terror and fainted and as the woman collapsed to the floor the General looked to his niece.

"No," he managed to gasp, realising the finality that had come, and come so swiftly, a doom upon his household. Even as he spoke that word of denial the Doctor and Ebhardt were leaping from their saddles. They had ridden until their horses were wet with sweat and had entered the park just as the sun was rising over the valley. They took to the stairs, two at a time, Voglreiter removing his hat as they burst into Laura's bedroom and tossed it upon the end of the bed. Before them the General had fallen upon the quilt and was cradling the limp doll that was his niece and he was calling her name, calling that he might wake her up, yet she did not respond.

"Laura," the General sobbed, and all for hope, and hope but a slender thread that had been severed by this catastrophe. "Laura… Laura!" he begged. The girl did not stir.

Carl and the Doctor could see quite plainly and painfully that Ebhardt's dash for help had availed nothing and that Laura was dead. Carl's guts took a hit, as if he had been punched. And there was the General, a man who had commanded many men and proved his bravery in battle hunched over a flaccid girl and reduced to a sobbing wreck. What had happened to the world so suddenly? Were they being punished by the divine will? This tragedy would fell the entire house and destroy everything.

"Doctor Erich, please hurry," the General urged, even though he knew that it was far too late and that Laura was beyond the realm of medicine, that she was dead and gone, just like her parents were dead, and gone. The Doctor had not seemed to take the General's fears seriously a few days ago and this was the price that they all must pay. But it was so easy to assign blame in the face of trauma, yet even as he realised this, the General could no longer summon the will to anger, all he felt was the stone of guilt and of regret rolling heavy upon his heart, and he could not even look directly at Ebhardt.

The Doctor placed his black case upon the quilt near Laura's feet and his discarded hat tumbled to the floor. Ignoring this he leaned forward and looked intently for a moment at the supine girl. Observing no motion in her limbs or breast he reached his hand to clasp her wrist. He felt with the tips of his fingers but no pulse was evident in the white flesh. From his wallet he took a monaural stethoscope and undid the silk ribbon at Laura's breast. Here he paused, just briefly, to recognise a scarlet stain on Laura's bosom, a rosy floret that had soaked into the creamy linen. Its blotch was puzzling and it stopped him only briefly, and pulling her bodice down he exposed her naked breast. With one deft movement Voglreiter placed the open end of the hearing trumpet upon her bare skin, under her breast, and put his ear to the narrow end. The soft nipple brushed against his cheek. He held his breath and listened. There was no heartbeat to hear, no respiration in the lungs. As he raised his head and lifted the stethoscope it came away smeared with blood, and the blood dripped from its rim in crimson droplets, splashing upon the sheets. And then at last he beheld the purple bruise upon the dead girl's breast and the scars just above the pale nipple, scars that were deep, as if two needles had been driven into Laura's flesh, and they were ragged about the edges and encrusted with scabby blood. The last of Laura's blood had oozed out from those wounds, seeped afresh in the act of the Doctor loosening her clothes and listening for her departed heartbeat. He could scarcely believe what he saw, or even the possibility of what it implied. Science must refute the possibility, because by those wounds science was made into nonsense. He gritted his teeth and realised the awful mistake he had made in half dismissing the girl's condition as hysteria, for now she was dead and his head was full of confusion. Yet it did not seem possible, the marks upon her breast, surely not? It implied an agency beyond reason, beyond modern medicine; it suggested an older and primal evil, and worse it suggested the existence of something that was beyond human understanding. This was one of those bewildering intersecting moments when reason and superstition locked swords. But just like the inexplicable death of Bruno Heitz, part of Erich's mind still contested the possibility of a revenant. It was hardly probable that Laura had been killed by a thing from beyond the grave, for to believe that meant medical science was vain and useless. The Doctor looked to the General and then to Carl and indicated with a glance that they should see. The two men stared down in disbelief at the dead girl's naked bosom, but what was even more disturbing and ghastly was the fact that Laura had died with a satisfied smile upon her lips.

"No!" uttered the General, knowing now the horrible truth. So this was his punishment for denying the female flesh, that he should meet death face to face and not even realise the fact. And how deceptive it was; that coil of Marcilla's cold beauty, for it had come into his house upon his own invitation and fed upon his family blood and upon his deceits. A gust of wind swirled about the room even though the window was closed, and the General snapped his head up to where Marcilla stood on the opposite side of the bed. He was ready to leap over Laura's body and grasp Marcilla and throttle her. The beautiful stranger's appellation was upon his lips even as he thought it, but she was no longer by the bed and her name passed into the ether. In fact she was no longer in the room. It seemed impossible that she could have slipped out of their sight without being seen by anyone, but she was gone. The General called her name again and he looked to the door. All three men turned, but they saw and heard nothing other than the wind as it gathered up the lace and blew out into the hall. The wind sped down the corridor and poured over the banister, it extinguished the candles burning in the ballroom and blew past Perseus and Andromeda, and it slammed the door closed with an emphatic crash, and the echo of General Spielsdorf's cry chased the wind out of the house. The wind rolled along the glacis and tore at the ivy and at the leaves upon the trees and caressed and bent their sturdy trunks and boughs. The chill shivered through the interlaced and vaulted heights, its whisper a withering malediction breathed into the air and it swept through the park and over the green, through the village and onward up the mountain. Through the woodland it called, winnowing free loose bark and dry sprigs, cold and a herald of death, singing its victory as it rose into the ether. The strange music it orchestrated sounded in a nightmare vortex, syncopated with the howl of a lone wolf and the rustle of leather wings. It whirled about pylons and rippled through the sculptured plumage of stone angels, upon crypt and grave stone, it reeled along turret and spire, along crumbling stone and splintered timber and it paused ever so briefly upon the lip of darkness that was the great oaken portal of a ruined castle. Stillness held the world in thrall then, stillness that froze all life rigid and life shivered in muted silence. "Marcilla!" the General shouted, but there was no reply. Marcilla had fled into the dawn and would never return. General Spielsdorf was now among the condemned and he would repent the betrayal of his life's blood forever.

A great shadow rode through the park with black wings wide, a darkness that flapped madly before the dawn, riding ahead of the sun's golden arrows. As it fled the rising sun, it too called out "Marcilla" and its ghostly chorus sang an aria to the tomb. In that space between the dark and the light where the appellation was sounded, it was altered, rearranged and changed, and as it changed so did the voice's pitch. The timbre of a male voice became the beckon and summons of a female intonation, but the female voice did not call "Marcilla", but instead it corrupted the name so that it was similar but different. _"Mircalla"_, the woman's voice sang like a chorus calling, in a cadence falling, in appoggiatura as the wind shivered a sigh across the new morning. The wind lilted over a raised tumuli decorated with sculpted ivy and the earth gave a little shudder as it turned to face the sun. The tomb was soon alight with golden luminance that burned away the veils of churning mist, and through that dissipating mist the shimmering eidolon of a female form in white slipped past the tomb and disappeared into a great oak door that was closed fast upon the world. The ghost faded into the castle ruin and into the nothing as if it had never owned solid shape. It had forsaken the world of the living, a world that did not include Laura Spielsdorf, and that world now woke up from troubled dreams and screamed and donned a black mourning veil. In the ruined graveyard, beneath the broken turrets and battlements, a little breeze stirred dead leaves and caressed the name that was wrought upon the crypt in the castle graveyard. The inscription was vivid in the breaking dawn. It read:

Mircalla Karnstein

1522 - 1546

Chapter 5:

Bereaved

In which Emma Morton grieves the death of her friend and a village girl is pursued in the forest.

The Morton house stood in a picturesque location beyond the viridian forest belt and under the protection of a steadfast mountain. It was a large house, with a carriageway that ended in an ivy covered portico at the front doors. A great oak tree stood sentinel near the house and around it a path led to an ornamental lake. The gardens were cleanly hedged with topiary and roses and neatly trimmed lawns. There were many rooms in the Morton house, but its size did not warrant a ballroom, yet the decors were comfortable and fashionable but not opulent. One could sit in the library and digest literature from the vast collection of books therein or one could take breakfast in the sunroom and walk in the gardens and admire the flora. The main floor was connected to the upper floor by a staircase with a gleaming rosewood banister and upon the wall were hung etchings of exotic places rather than stilted portraits. Not far from the house a path led through the gardens to a crystalline lake where ducks paddled through the rushes and salmonidae darted in the cool depths. In the bright gleaming sunshine the residence appeared a warming and welcoming place to live, even with the promise of a creeping change in the weather. Every other day, when the sun shone warmly, Emma and her Governess, Mademoiselle Perrodon, went walking in the gardens and enjoyed nature, sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the eve. They were returning from just such a walk as the day was closing and were approaching the house from the path by the great oak. Emma saw the dappled mare tied up by the front entrance and joyous that they should have a visitor, broke into a run. But her joy was short lived, for Carl Ebhardt; the young manager of General Spielsdorf's estates had ridden over twenty kilometres to deliver some very heartbreaking news. He looked quite exhausted upon his arrival, his black hair dishevelled by the wind and his handsome face drawn into stiff lines. There was no cause to smile in any case for he was the harbinger of ill tidings, of a ghastly intelligence that proclaimed Laura Spielsdorf's sudden death. Upon entering the drawing room with her Governess and overhearing the news being related to her father, Emma had collapsed upon a sofa, wringing her hands and was unable to stay neither the wracking sobs nor the tears that filled her great brown eyes. At first the girl was incredulous and thought Carl Ebhardt was jesting, but the young man had remained stoically serious and Morton himself had drawn Carl aside. Morton was afraid that this terrible herald would bring on another bout of nervous melancholia in his daughter and that Emma's fragile life would find a new and unwanted suffering. Life had been a difficult course to steer for everyone in the last few years, coping with his wife's suicide and the necessary juggling of financial matters both locally and abroad. Morton's regular absence from home also brought with it the fear that this new turn of events would take poor Emma closer to complete introversion and depression. The relationship with Laura Spielsdorf had been a very positive boon in Emma's life but now that was all wiped away by the terrible fact of her untimely death. Sometimes, Morton confessed to himself, he hardly understood the female in neither mind nor body at all. Of course he had loved his wife, but he had truly been oblivious of her mental state, and that she had taken her own life was still something Morton could barely understand. He could not afford to be oblivious now to Emma's needs, and here was this new and unexpected tragedy. They had only just attended Laura's birthday party and she had been the picture of perfect health and beauty. Emma looked to him now and he seemed hardly up to the task of consolation, deeply vexed as he was, and hovering precariously on the brink of a serious confusion. In some ways it was fortunate to have Mademoiselle Perrodon at hand, she seemed the only port of comfort available to poor Emma at this moment, and the Governess sat beside the bereaved girl and embraced her. Emma could not understand the severe workings of Fate, she sobbed with a grief that a thousand words of consolation would never take away. If this grief belied her as weak in mind and delicate in constitution then where was she to find the strength to cope?

"Thus am I separated from all these people in my suffering," Emma thought as Mademoiselle Perrodon wrapped her arm about Emma's shoulders. "And none shall ever understand." Her father and Ebhardt were doing it now, whispering and only half-looking at her, separating her from what they saw as further suffering, but by that exclusion alone they only seemed to be making her feel worse. Was there something so very terrible about her friend's death that she should not know the details? What was she being spared? "How ridiculous do they think I am?" thought Emma. "I am not so delicate that I am to expire from shock!" Could she not exhibit her grief without being thought a weakling, after all the news was so shocking and so sudden? Of course these men did not say as much aloud but it was obvious what they were thinking. Emma tried to compose herself, and between her sobs she tried to listen. What was it that Ebhardt had intimated, that his words suggested something dark, a malignant agency under whose thrall pretty Laura had fallen? His words were fragmentary and made little sense, and they only added to her father's confusion. Morton could only shake his head gravely throughout the interview. When Emma glanced up and daubed her tears with the handkerchief that Mademoiselle Perrodon had proffered, Emma's head felt light and her stomach and chest hurt from crying so, and it was difficult to hear what the two men were saying. But she wanted to know. It was hardly fair that Laura should die so young; why, she had only just begun her life. She was going to be engaged to Ebhardt, but he now wore an expression of stone and there was nothing of happy emotion rendered there. Perhaps he had decided to close up, like a book, to shut the covers as if that story had been read and he did not need the climax of further surprises. He needed perhaps to think about other things and was hoping that the ordeal of delivering this news would be brief and he could be gone. He had mentioned a funeral. A funeral! Worse even was the half whispered intimation that Laura had been cremated. They had interred her ashes over a week ago and no one had come to tell! The realisation that she had been infantilised once again, that she had been delicately spared even that important detail and denied her grief lit another fire of resentment in Emma's core. For the life of her she could not understand this silly protective shield these men put up, as if they were being chivalrous in withholding knowledge. To be fair to her father this news was now only just being told to him, but he was acting like she was some hybrid and delicate flower, that to hear the truth would be too much for her to take. In any case he too didn't seem to fully comprehend its effect and Emma wanted to tell him that he should not treat her so and to remind him of her mother's fate. Sadly he only looked confused and he could not have been any more remote at this moment if he were on the other side of the world. Emma resentfully surmised that if her father had understood his own wife's illness a little better it might have been easier to cope with this awful news now. Was there any point then in protecting her? She didn't think so, the scars still bled because she still had no notion as to why.

"Yes," Emma thought to herself, "there is a peculiar yearning in my heart. I do wish my father would cease to treat me like a child. I am nineteen years old! How am I to respect this control over my character, over my mind when he does not see that I am growing up? Am I not ever to think for myself?"

Was she to have no opinion on the subject being discussed, after all Laura had been her friend and companion? Laura had been coming to visit and there would have been some sunny days to be shared, but now there was only misery and sorrow. Emma shook her head, and Mademoiselle misinterpreted her physicality as anguish and held her closer. The room was becoming stifling and Emma suddenly felt the desire to push Mademoiselle off, to get up and leave the room, but she struggled against the impulse. There was a strange and almost unwelcome closeness in the way Mademoiselle held her and kissed her cheek. She glanced over the Governess's shoulder and looked beyond the window. The sun was dying rapidly outside and the sky was turning deep navy blue. It didn't seem right that the lines of the world should draw up so sharply and clearly and go on ever so arrogantly. But the world did go on despite the shadow of grief that had been cast over its girth. Such was the dismal philosophy thus being described to her, that one shall cope and continue, even in the face of tragedy and be excluded. As to how long she could go on in this world of isolation was really the question, and she felt certain that the problem must soon be addressed if she were not to go mad herself. Emma could only see herself falling deeper and deeper with every succeeding day into a thoroughly subdued existence that was both passive and passionless. The thought only served to further dim her spirits and she burst into another bout of despondent tears. Mademoiselle held her tighter.

"Poor Laura," said Mr. Morton, dropping his eyes and nodding his head back and forth. "And the General?"

"The General has gone away, sir," Ebhardt replied, his voice dull and soulless. He was looking at Emma as he spoke, "to visit a friend, the Baron Hartog."

"Yes, he wouldn't want to stay in that house. I understand that."

The ghostly shadow of a vaguely wry smile rippled over Ebhardt's handsome face. Indeed the General's house was empty now of both life and purpose. It had been the breeding ground for lies anyway, but death had been the most horrible way to sort the mess out. He knew there would be a lot of adjustments to make if he stayed and the thought of a cold future made him tired. Over a week ago he had dispatched a letter to Baron Hartog but the General had not received a reply. To avoid further sorrow General Spielsdorf had decided to leave his mansion and travel to Moravia. His house had become a mausoleum in any case and only phantom shadows now dwelt therein. Emma Morton was young and this woe would pass, even if it meant her heart was temporarily cracked. At least it was not irrevocably shattered. Through her tears Emma realised Carl was staring at her and she managed a brief smile. Their eyes met fleetingly. Morton followed Ebhardt's gaze. The young man did not utter a goodbye but turned to leave and perceiving that she had been blatantly ignored Emma collapsed into more tears.

"Mademoiselle Perrodon will look after her," Morton said, though he still did not move to console his daughter but instead followed Ebhardt, closing the drawing room door upon the two women and momentarily locking away the grief. Outside he watched silently as Carl stepped up into the saddle of his horse and rode off till the trees and distance and the oncoming night obscured him from vision. Morton wondered what was expected of him now, what did he say and what did he do? If it had been an issue about trade or commerce he would have birthed the answer immediately, but matters of the female condition left him bewildered. A raven called from the eaves and Morton glanced up to see it take wing against the darkling sky. The afternoon sun had descended quickly and filled his eyes with blind shadows. The twilight seemed stilled and hushed; tentative and awaiting a fresh misfortune and Morton did not understand why such blows should strike their lives. Hadn't he come here, to this distant place called Stiria in the hope of removing himself from further tragedy? Such ill tidings and how he needed to think for a bit. Mr. Morton stood for a little while on his portico wrestling with his problem but he hesitated to return inside to his daughter. Part of his heart knew that he should go to her but another part did not want to because that part would have to revisit and deal with more unhappiness. Morton shrugged and closed that part of his mind off despite the foreboding little shiver that wound its serpentine way about his heart.

A romantic afternoon with Birgit was a fine way to spend your day off. A little spring animated Conrad's step as he walked back to the house. Pausing by the lower orchard gate, a rolled up blanket under his arm, he glanced up at the sky. Gloaming was upon the world already and it mantled the distant mountain peaks in purple shadows. The last of the sunshine was beaming weakly through the gap of the far-off divide. Although the weather was subtly changing into cooler climes, it had been a warm afternoon in more ways than one, with Birgit pressed against him and her hot breath in his ear, whispering lurid talk and kissing his lips. How they had forgotten all about time while in each other's embrace, and the afternoon had abruptly caught them with its long and spidery shadow fingers. Conrad had hastily pulled on his trousers and his shirt, telling Birgit that he would walk her through the forest to the town precinct, but she refused, laughing at his gallantry. The young man still felt guilty. Birgit had insisted that she go alone, and that she wasn't afraid of the dark. Besides, by the time that she got home to the Bullheimer farm she would have thought of the perfect excuse for her tardiness, and old man Bullheimer was easy enough not to bother much. There was of course Conrad's position to consider at the Spielsdorf house. He was one of the General's upstairs attendants and held good status. With the station came the benefits that allowed for little dalliances like this afternoon's rendezvous in the apple orchard. Birgit was happy enough with their arrangements, in fact she quite liked Conrad. He remembered how her eye had caught his that first day she had come to the kitchens for cider and preserve in return for the Bullheimer cheese. Her brown eyes had glinted with the sparks thrown by his silver buckles and he had looked so handsome all dressed up and important in his livery. She was a flirt that one, smiling invitingly and running a quick look over every contour of his body. She had let a stray hand flutter against his buttock as she had moved past him and down to the cellar with cook, throwing a sultry glance over her shoulder when cook was not looking. Conrad had thought of nothing else for the whole of that day, except in his mind the stroke became extended and Birgit looked like the type of girl who was definitely not shy. He chuckled to himself as he relived the moment. And then there was today, down at the far end of the apple orchard away from the stables and the main house and away from any who might glimpse their love. Conrad had brought a chequered patterned rug with him and unrolled it beneath a tree. Whilst he did this Birgit giggled and reached up a hand to pluck an apple from a close twig. Her hips swayed invitingly as she stretched up onto her toes and with her other hand she undid the ribbon that tied up her flaming russet locks. Birgit took a few apples and put them in her basket along with the cider, and then she rubbed the last red apple upon pretty floral skirt till it glowed in the sunlight, then raised it to her mouth and bit into its sweet flesh. Conrad felt himself go hard in his trousers. Birgit watched him, watched him lick his lips. She extended the apple and proffered the fruit and he took it and bit into it roughly. The girl laughed as he threw away the core and embraced her, taking her basket and pushing it aside, peeling away the embroidered linen of her blouse and freeing her bosoms. Conrad kissed her hard and she returned his kiss, fervidly, ardently, and he buried his face in the soft flesh of her breasts and tasted the sweet nipples till they stood hard and red. Onto the blanket they fell, Conrad shaking loose from his shirt, Birgit tugging urgently at his trousers. His sex liberated Birgit's lush mouth closed upon its swollen length, her tongue wet and hot but she didn't rush but rather paused agonisingly at the very tip of the shaft. Conrad thought he might explode there and then yet he did not, the moment was to be savoured not squandered. Overcoming the temptation he shifted his position as she worked her mouth upon him, and his own mouth sought between the milky valley of her thighs. She gasped as his tongue found her most sensitive part and there he sipped with a slow and wondrous ardour until at length they coupled and both spent and shuddered in each other's arms and the afternoon faded from gold to primrose. Conrad wrapped Birgit in the closeness of his naked skin and pulling the blanket tightly about their bodies he kissed her and she smiled. They listened quietly to the birds twittering in the trees and to the low hollow ring of bells from the high pasture where the sheep grazed. The sounds were harmonious and made both Conrad and Birgit drowsy. He traced a languid finger over the lines of her skin and breathed in her scent, her sweet odours, and theirs was a moment of shared bliss as they touched each other, subdued after the flames of passion. She kissed his lips and put her cheek against his chest. In her ear she heard the thrumming of his heart. A little breeze rifled through the orchard, crisp with its promise of winter and an apple shook loose from a branch, falling close to Birgit's wicker basket. Sadly it was a reminder that Birgit should go before it got too late.

Now the jaunt left Conrad's step as he looked at the approach of night and thought perhaps that he should have insisted that he accompany Birgit home. The weather was beginning to change now and the dark was coming on quicker. The first stars were glimmering low in the panoply of the sky and the moon was fading into view as the sun died. Conrad's body gave a little shudder and he did not know why, a portend that reminded him of the recent tragedy in his master's house. A chill passed over his skin as he did up the buttons of his shirt. He did not like to think of Laura's death, not just now, not after he had had such a happy afternoon, but the thought was there and he could not shift it. No one had really come to grips with the girl's passing and there was mystery surrounding the circumstances. The beautiful houseguest Marcilla had disappeared, Carl Ebhardt had ridden to the Morton estate this very morning and the General had gone to Moravia. He wondered what the General would do when he returned and whether he would continue on in this house or move to Vienna. There was much to speculate and much to be anxious about. Why though did earthly pleasure almost invariably lead you along a dark and contradictory road? Shadows had disturbed his felicity. He should be joyous for the gift of his amorous afternoon. Conrad told himself this much, nodding as he did so, he should not be pondering doom! As the chill in the air poured down from the alpine heights it swayed the branches in the fruit orchard and Conrad shivered and unfurled the rug and draped it over his shoulders. Well, it was getting late and he must get back even though it now seemed hardly chivalrous to have let Birgit go off alone. He'd be in the kitchen soon and cook would have dinner going and pretty Birgit would be fine, she knew the forest very well and was not likely to get lost in the dark, besides, the moon was rising over the forest and its light would guide her home. She'd be safe, of that he was certain.

A bird screeched in the dark, startling Birgit as she walked along the forest path. She had been feeling fine until that bird had shrieked and the sound was so sudden that her bones almost leapt from her skin. Defensively she hugged her basket tight and glanced nervously about. Not that she could see all that clearly, for although the moon had now risen, her vision was limited in the occluded forest and it was difficult to make out shape and form in the shadows. Birgit told herself that she was silly for feeling edgy because she had walked these forests many times, and had walked them in the evening too, and nothing bad had happened before. So why did she sense doubt and worry now? Perhaps she should have let Conrad walk her home after all, it would have been the journey of half an hour and no one would have questioned. Silly how the heart made you do impulsive things, Birgit thought, and now she was alone in the dark and strangely frightened. Perhaps she might be home sooner if she took a shortcut, and she convinced herself that maybe that was her best option. Her chosen way took her by the village graveyard, and as she came at length out of the woods and into a clearing the moon beamed upon the burial ground. She hastily skipped through the rusty gate and walked with quick step among the tilted crosses and mouldering tumuli. Here Birgit found her heartbeat getting faster and she began to regret her hasty change of path. The wind rustled in the trees and there were weird and unpredictable sounds in the dark, like animal calls and birds flapping, but the sounds were distorted and scary. Birgit bit down on her lower lip. It was too late to turn back now, too late to ask Conrad to hold her hand in the shadows. And then another sound filtered to her ear out of the dark, a sound that was so close that it might have called right out beside her, a half whispered and half sung suspiring groan. The girl froze in her tracks, caught in the cruciform shadow of a headstone. A little distance to the left Birgit thought she saw movement. Yes, it wasn't her imagination; there was a movement in the dark, over there, behind that stele. The shift of darkness within the dark space made her stifle a cry and choke off a whimper. Staring wildly she could not make out anything clearly, but it seemed that but a few paces away a thick mist was seeping up through the ground, and rapidly, and forming into a black and silver-grey column like a thunder cloud. There were sparks in the column of mist too, as if tiny stars were exploding in the maelstrom of it vapour and churning with the speed of fired arrows. Birgit narrowed her eyes and strained to see what she imagined was a figure standing within that pillar of smoke, only a few metres away. She gasped and her hand flew to her breast, but the vision was only an angel with a night bird taking flight beneath the seraph's broken wings. With a loud sigh of nervous relief the girl hastily moved off, almost jumping the slabs of stone so as to put the cemetery and the mist behind her. The atmospheres suddenly grew colder and as she emerged on the far side of the graveyard she could see her own breath become visible in the air. She pulled her shawl tighter about her shoulders and with faster pace she walked into the forest. Once again she was plunged into a black void, a gloaming punctuated with shifting darknesses and mysterious sounds. The ground became steeper, sloping upward and then suddenly down and the girl bobbed and slipped sideways. As her heartbeat quickened so did her breathing. Or were the sounds of breathing and heartbeat from another who followed her in the blackness? She did not know. All Birgit now understood was a horrible, throbbing fear. She abruptly broke into a run and the dark pursued her, tracked her, followed close behind, darting and weaving to catch her up as Birgit ran and stumbled. A screech sounded at her shoulder and echoed through the dark. That screech merged with a ghastly flapping noise, as of beating wings and snapping twigs, and the servant girl almost screamed in her mounting terror and dropped her basket. Apples flew wide and rolled down the incline along with a wheel of yellow cheese and a bottle of cider. The wind snatched away the blue chequered cloth and the bottle of apple cider struck a stone and broke, fizzing white foam in the dappled dark. Birgit missed her footing and almost fell, twisting her foot and throwing off her shoe. A pain shot through her ankle, making her wince, but she did not stop to retrieve her slipper but kept running, her bosom heaving, her skirts tangling about her legs. Disorientated she turned sharply and tried to double back, but all was confusion and her bearings were lost. The shadows chased her, moving and darting between the trees and Birgit ducked around a mountain ash and a sickle-like claw slashed at the bark. Birgit screamed. She plunged headlong into a screen of bracken and could not see where it was she fled and the breathing sounds amplified and mutated into a nerve-jangling growl, a sound unlike anything the peasant girl had ever heard before, and it snarled and hissed and she in turn whimpered and cried out. Underfoot broken twigs and stones cut her feet and the dark closed in nearer then, reaching out a shadow claw all covered with bristling hairs that glowed like phosphorescent spears in the night. The claw raked at the girl's back, catching the fabric of her shawl and her blouse and tearing both away in one awful swipe. As the fabric tore away Birgit screamed again, throwing up her hands to hold onto the rending material, but it was useless. Her breasts came tumbling free and Birgit tripped on a tree root. She landed heavily on the ground, the wind knocked from her lungs, her hair knotting up with vine and leaf. Little thorns in the vines scratched her white skin and drew thin traces of crimson across her exposed bosoms. The thorns stung with a sharp acid sting and the pain was intense, her deflated lungs struggling to gasp for the air as she tried to roll from her stomach over onto her back. Tears of pain welled up in her eyes. As Birgit lay prostrate, the darkness billowed above her and unfurled like a black banner and then it fell upon her, flipping her body over as if she were a rag doll and pinning her down with its weight. Birgit glimpsed thunderbolts flashing in hot red eyes, large eyes, huge eyes, frightful and fiery and eyes that were bisected through their red centres by narrow black irises. The shadow gaped with two half moons of ivory teeth, long and sharp and curved and yellow that studded a slavering maw larger than a wolf's mouth. It was some hideous phantasy that assailed her, the incarnation of a creature beyond the feral and the base and it gave a guttural howl and its teeth flashed down in a tide of sticky spit and it bit deeply into the peasant girl's breast. Upon the strike Birgit regained her breath and gave one final, agonised scream. A fountain of blood cascaded from her torn flesh and coloured the darkness scarlet and Birgit knew the intensity of suffering as she died, as her life blood sated the damned, as the thing fed upon her till it bloated and pulsed like a foul and disgusting leech.

Ebhardt had been riding for an hour, taking byways and shortcuts through the woods so that his journey would quicken. He was tired and agitated and he wanted to be back at the General's estate before the moon rose high. On a secluded forest path Ebhardt reined his dappled mare to a halt. He raised his head and turned about, the horse snorted and shook its mane. From out of the dark he imagined he had heard the echo of a scream, a woman's scream, coming from somewhere close by. He waited for a short moment listening intently, but the forest was resolutely hushed all about as if it were daring him to make reply. Ebhardt could not track from which direction the scream had come and he looked about in the darkness, facing all points of the compass. He shivered and part of his insides went cold. Carl did not like the notion of admitting even the faintest trace of fear, but right here, right now, there was fear in the night. What made the truth of this even more explicit was the absence of bird calls, and there were no other noises either, no snuffling or crackling foliage, only that one and dreadful shriek. Impatient to be home his mount pawed at the ground, his disturbance communicated to the mare. His mind was gripped by a brief paralysis and as it struggled with the physical processes of thought and movement, it also knew a horrible reality that chilled his core. Out there in the dark was the very real possibilities of some fearful manifestation in the forest, the medium by which Laura Spielsdorf had met her doom, and it was close, very close indeed. He sensed its nearness, and he knew it mocked him. But rather than acknowledge his fear Ebhardt gently tapped his knee against the mare's belly, the stirrups jangling faintly, and the horse resumed a slow canter, though Carl wanted nothing better than to gallop away as fast as he could. The woods were dark and silent again and the chill air swirled about him, his travelling cloak flapping in the wind. As he passed through the shadows Ebhardt's mind eventually eased and he told himself reassuringly that he wasn't even sure he had heard anything at all, it was probably his tired imagination. He'd be back at General Spielsdorf's residence soon and if there were any report of a mischief afoot this night, well, he'd hear about it soon enough.

Chapter 6:

A Tender Friendship

In which a coach overturns outside the Morton house and how Emma finds a new friend in the beautiful Carmilla.

In the weeks that followed, Emma Morton had once again resigned herself to her solitary life and on this bright and sunny morning, sitting in the annex that overlooked the garden, the greenhouse and the great oak tree, Emma was taking breakfast alone. She had likened her past two years unto the most horripilant journey into darkness that a young woman could ever take and although with cautious reserve, she had decided that now it was time for the darkness to go away. With her friend Laura dead, there was little hope that another such friend would come along, a friend to share a laugh, a confidence, and trust. Although Emma swore to herself that this time, she would not become the victim of melancholy but rather she would be strong and deal with her tragic loss in a fashion that befitted an adult woman. It was strange how that upon this very thought, that the forbidden text of _"__The Lustful Turk, or Lascivious Scenes from a Harem__"___once again blossomed in her head. There was the seed of an idea in that tale that transcended the lurid and the solicitous, it sang to her of something else, of her own vital being, and of the reality of her own needs. It made her feel quite astutely the lonely life she had been living, her isolation. Although Emma's fixation was with the novel's sexual adventures that took place somewhere distant, they played out with both pain and pleasure. How two such extremes of reaction were to combine only made her thoughts more confused. She was taking a solitary breakfast of oats and toast and fresh orange juice. There was no one else about, not even Mademoiselle Perrodon had risen yet, to engage in idle chatter, and Emma took the opportunity of privacy to pause for reflection. Perhaps it was time to be less shocked by her own biology and become more in control of it instead of letting the few men who populated her sole existence treat her as if she had no agency of her own. That of course was wishful thinking, for the want of being strong and in control of your own life implied somehow that you were an abomination to the female species. What "_The Lustful Turk"_ excited was a suppressed desire to be in love, no, to experience a man's hard flesh, his penis, and Emma was beginning to understand something else too, she knew the attractiveness of her own body, in fact she now understood the tacit allure of _all_ female flesh. How female flesh made that male flesh hard and wanting. This sudden thirst in her body was simply the awakening of her own dawning sexual maturity. It had been dormant only because it had been denied and she reasoned that there was a time and place for reserve but there was also a time to acknowledge the changes, the transformation of her own body from young girl to young woman. In her mind, she openly admitted to herself that Carl Ebhardt made her pulse race. His was a very handsome face and his body was a finely muscled physique, perhaps that of a Roman Soldier, with strong forearms and wide chest, and there was a hardly concealed decadence that lurked under his beautiful skin and shone in his burning eye. It was a secret knowledge that he telegraphed, that he understood the ways of the flesh and to lie with him might bring the newly awakened senses unto stupefaction. His lips would surely deliver a long and maddeningly delightful kiss. The flame of ardour had been lit now and Emma did not even think to douse it. Yet what sexual pleasures and depravities had those decadent _rouées_ and their amours performed in that carnal epistolary? What did _'delightful congress'_ really imply? Such terms were almost beyond anything she could have imagined had it not been for the addition of those illustrations. There were women in that story who not only drank from the poisoned bowl of lust but also received sensual gratifications that were beyond the bounds of nature. Some of the acts the work described even denounced male pleasure and these women performed unchaste acts with other women and oft in the presence of curious spectators. Moreover, the men, they were obliged to promiscuity and to satisfy their worldly necessities by performing abundantly first with their tongues and then with their members. Emma blushed, but the thought of it all made her head reel, the thought of how male flesh tasted, how it smelled, its strength and its softness, its vital essences and the wildest phantasies of profane intercourse. It made her think of Ebhardt's body, hard as iron and soft as satin and how that body might look without clothes on. Like a Roman god in a realm of lust, she imagined that Ebhardt deflowered her, and in that voluptuous realm, the thrusting priap conquered virtue and honour. None could be spared, not wife, mother, daughter, son nor husband, for all and sundry at some point gave over to the bacchanal of the flesh. This knowledge should have disgusted and repelled her moral senses, or so she told herself, but why was that not so? A tiny fire had begun flaring up in her belly and it had somehow become hotter here in the breakfast room. She put down her spoon and pushed away the bowl of oats. No, she could not let that flame go out but rather she promised herself that she would fan that flame and keep it alight for should it be extinguished so then would be her life. What would her life be if she were never to meet anyone, to be shut away in this big old country house in a land as alien to her as was the moon in the firmament far above? Emma did not like the idea of being lonely forever, of being trapped and wasting her youth at the behest of men who did not understand you let alone care about your needs. Of course, the death of Laura had been a shock and its pain had hurt, but Emma still had her life to consider and it might be time to acknowledge that fact. Was it so improper to feel attracted to your dead friend's fiancé, to wonder what his flesh might taste like? Just as she pondered upon this, her reverie was interrupted by her father. He called to her a "good morning", although she did not hear, flinching like a startled rabbit when he came up to her side and placed his hand upon her shoulder.

"Emma," he repeated "are you dreaming, dear?"

"Oh, father," she replied, "I'm sorry. I was miles away." Her cheeks flushed scarlet.

"Still upset about Laura?" He was looking directly in her face and he still seemed oblivious to any physical change.

"Yes, of course," Emma responded, "but I must accept her death."

Morton gave a little grunt and a made a passive smile.

"Of course there was nothing I could have done," Emma continued, her normal colouring beginning to return. "But I don't want to be sad today, father, so let us not talk about that. Shall we go riding through the glade and up by the lake?"

"Why, what a splendid idea. I might find a good spot from which to fish."

"Good," said Emma, and though she scarce believed her father would actually go fishing she was glad for the excuse to finish at the breakfast table. "I'll go and get into some riding clothes."

"Yes, dear. I will see you down soon?"

"Give me ten minutes father."

Emma leaned forward and excused herself, and as she rose, she placed a token kiss on his forehead and ran upstairs to her room. Morton watched her till she was gone and then after a brief moment that took him nowhere he looked down at his empty plate. The family cat Gustav padded softly up to his ankles and began to rub and purr. Mr Morton stretched down and scratched the cat under its chin. Then, as if suddenly realising that he should eat, he sat down at the breakfast table and reached over and took the silver cover from a tray. Eggs and bacon peeked temptingly from beneath. "Delicious," he thought, selecting a crispy rasher. "Delicious."

Gustav jumped lightly up upon Emma's vacant chair and looked at Morton with big pleading eyes.

A groom steadied the brown mare, holding the reins strap in one hand and helping Morton up into his saddle with the other. The horse barely moved a muscle. Emma was already seated side saddle on a black mount, the veil of her hat lifting in the light breeze and wafting gently over her shoulder. She was impatient to be off and be away from the stuffy confines of the house. The stable boy led both horses from under the ivy and into the carriageway then stepped aside. Morton's gaze was focussed on the path ahead and he did not speak to his daughter other than to exchange a few uninspiring pleasantries; and Emma was happy enough that silence rode with them. They rode slowly along the way and then broke off into the park, picking up pace as they passed under the trees, scattering a carpet of sere leaves in their wake. They rode over a spread of bracken and conifer needles and into the woods, the view to the Alps screened off as the way grew steeper. Up the ascending landscape, they trotted, the trees stretching to the sky, and the sky glimpsed in shards of lapis lazuli in bright and warm morning sunshine. The light from the star bathed Emma's pale cheeks with a rosy glow and her face resembled a great big valentine. She had donned a neat but dowdy fawn coloured riding skirt, white lace blouse and chocolate jacket but the gilded sunlight struggled feebly to enliven its sombre tone. Astride her coal-dyed horse her pretty heart-shaped face, wrapped up in hat and veil and her dun coloured wardrobe made her almost disappear against the achromatic backdrop of silver-brown trunk and branch and verdigris leaf and shadow. In silence, the two rode on through the forest, Emma searching furtively for a glimpse of a doe or a fox, anything to distract her from partaking in a pointless conversation with her father. She had no need to fear his intrusion into her thoughts, for his mind was thankfully far away, and at length as they trotted on they came down a gentle slope onto the main byway. All about was oddly still and Emma and her father barely observed that the birds and forest animals had all fled at the sounding approach of hooves. It was not the noise of their own horses clopping that had caused the abrupt silence but rather the thunder of a madly approaching team and carriage. What followed happened so quickly that the duration of the action was accomplished within the passing of seconds, but to the Morton's as they beheld the spectacle, every detail was as vivid and as violent as is the crack of a whip. As the black vehicle cut around a bend in the road, it plunged into a rapid charge and rushed through a gate of opposing trunks that flanked the way. Emma saw a postillion mounted on the drawing horse to the left as he was almost thrown back in his saddle, and he vainly reached out with desperate fingers to grasp the reins of the horse that ran alongside. His efforts to induce the panicked animal into breaking its unexpected speed were futile, and the coach pitched about on its springs, lunging forward and swaying perilously from side to side. It was clear that the driver had lost control of his team and that an imminent disaster was but seconds away. There was a shout to the Jehu, but he was beyond hearing as he pulled back on his reins, and the call was to no effect. The call had burst from one of the coachmen at the rear, a shout of surprise that sounded above the thunder of the pounding hooves, and at the same time the shriek of a woman tore from the carriage as it plunged forward into its mad dash. The cry rent the morning air. The sound made Emma Morton's blood run cold and she pulled her own mount to an abrupt halt on the side of the incline as the carriage drew parallel and shuddered in the rutted way. Swept along as if in the rushing winds of a tempest, the scream became an echo and the echo joined with the grinding roar of the spinning wheels as they ran into a deep and muddy groove in the road. As the carriage careened to a smashing stop and turned over upon its right side, two of the coachmen mounted at the rear were thrown violently from their perches, tumbling through the air in their bright red liveries, one dashing his head upon a projecting rock the other somersaulting in the mud. The third avoided serious injury by leaping into the air, and thus propelled, he landed in the roadside and tumbled into the mud. The coachman doubled over but held his seat, gathering the reins into a fist as the horses became agitated and vocal. Mr. Morton was the first to jump down from his saddle and run to their aid. Emma waited on her horse in a paralysis of suspense.

"Are you all right?" Morton asked as he stepped up to the coachman, but the man's reply was only a muted "yes", almost unintelligible and lowly muttered, turning his back to Morton as he spoke and going to tend his team. Morton walked briskly up to the dangerously listing vehicle. As he reached for the door handle he noted a family crest embossed on the panel, it was the head of a dragon-like creature perched above another larger monster's head, both embossed onto a royal blue shield. The hippogryph's each had red tongues that protruded from fanged, beaked jaws. The motto conveyed a suggestion of strength through terror, Morton was not sure, but regardless they were mythological creatures and beaked and with flaming tongues. The coat of arms insinuated that the carriage was the property of someone wealthy or important. Bending and thrusting at the handle Morton managed to open the door and the slim white and trembling hand of a woman spilled from its angled interior.

"Is anyone hurt?" Morton asked, the coachman who had struck his head. The man staggered upright and clasped a bleeding forehead. Blood dripped through his fingers and disappeared into the like coloured fabric of his tunic. The woman's hand grasped at Morton's, a great blue coloured stone in a smith-worked silver ring adorned her third finger, glinting in the morning sunlight as if it had stolen a clutch of stars from the conquered night. Mr. Morton helped the woman to get out of the carriage. She was a very handsome female, one of obvious regal bearing and dressed in black with a white veil covering her head and she leaned upon Morton's arm to steady herself. Her breaths were rapid, and she was far from calm as she squinted in the light as if it hurt her eyes. Her attire appeared to have been chosen for some grim occasion, as if she were on her way or even returning from some unhappy event. The woman shook her head as if to right her thoughts, and she appeared confused and disorientated. She turned away from Morton and stretched out her hand toward the tilted carriage.

"My niece!" she exclaimed, and her eyes grew wide with fear.

"Emma!" Morton called urgently, summoning his daughter from her mount. She quickly slid from her saddle and hurried to the stricken coach, running across the muddy road as fast as she could, wet earth sticking to her boots. Despite the horror of the situation, it was all terribly exciting. It was not every day that a coach overturned outside a Stirian castle, right in front of your very eyes!

"My house is nearby," reassured Morton, guiding the woman in black to a fallen log under the shadows of the trees. She clung to his riding cloak with shaking fingers, trembling all over as she at upon a gnarled trunk, unable to calm her nerves. "You must rest a while," Morton insisted.

"No, no, my journey is imperative!" The woman let go of Morton's clothes and began flailing in the air, as if giving orders to her driver and coachmen by mere signal alone. They were scurrying like rats to drag the horses from the rut and thus pull the coach back to level ground. There did not seem to be any damage to the spokes and the iron wheel rims were not bent. As the men hauled and heaved the woman turned her eye from Morton and addressed the servants. "Quick! Quick!" she cried, distress draining the colour from her immaculate features. There was a wild and bewildered look in her eyes.

Emma had come up to the coach and had stooped within the frame of the gaping door. A shaft of sunlight streaming in through the opposite window revealed a young woman huddled into the deepest corners of the shadows, shivering in a blue cloak and with a face of porcelain as pale as a ghost. Her slender and ivory white arm was clutching at the heavy fabric and trying to hold it in close.

The image of the poor trembling creature upset Emma, and she turned back to her father. "Father," she said, finding her own voice beginning to tremble, "she's very shocked. We must take her home with us."

"Oh no, no, I cannot," interjected the woman in the white veil, "my brother is dying. I cannot delay."

The woman held Mr. Morton with an imploring gaze. It was for as short a moment as is the passing of a breath, but it was a look wherein the colour black became mixed with the bleach of white, where the eve and the morn collided, and where the will coerced an unspoken command eliciting consent, and consent was given even as it was duped.

"My name is Morton. May I be allowed to suggest that your..." Here his words hovered upon the indefinite. "Your niece..."

"Carmilla." The name flowed from the woman's rosy lips and the words sounded like a cat purring, soothing but curiously mysterious.

"Carmilla," repeated Morton, "would be more that welcome to stay with us while you continue your journey."

The woman shook her head, scintillates darting from the droplet pearls and diamonds swaying at her ears. "Oh, no, no, no, it is impossible!" A bustle of activity from the men in bright red livery had begun to ease the groaning carriage out of its ditch. The horses, now settled gave tension to their braces and the harness straps began to tighten.

Then Morton looked upon Emma and Emma looked upon the mysterious woman. Her look was that of one pleading, but one who could not speak and an electric suspense passed between all three.

"My daughter would be grateful for the company." Morton suggested, and his daughter's doe eyes widened with surprise, her cheeks dimpling deeply, and her pretty lips drawing up into a wide smile. This could not be happening she told herself. Why, only a few short minutes ago she had been seated at her breakfast table pondering whether she would ever have another friend to visit. It was as if God had chosen to hear her most intimate wish and here he had assigned someone unto that very purpose, right out of the blue, to share a short while together and bring happiness.

The veiled woman acquiesced all too quickly and she too smiled. "You are too kind," she told Morton, and as she spoke the words, Emma gasped aloud for joy. She turned back to the carriage just as it was beginning to lurch forward.

"You're to stay with us!" she exclaimed excitedly to the girl in the coach.

As the carriage moved slowly forward into the full glare of the sun it once again became level, and Emma had to make pace to keep alongside the open door. The girl within huddled in the dim interior, almost folding herself up into the deep blue velvet upholstery. She was trembling violently, drawing her slim white arm beneath the folds of her midnight cloak, so that her bare skin avoided the daylight. And Emma glimpsed the young woman's beautiful face as it shone like the corona around a black star, its radiance shifting under the cloak's hood, golden, white, and hazy. It was a finely chiselled and sculpted visage, one that might have been wrought by a master from the most flawless alabaster and yet its features slipped quickly into tenebrous hues. Emma could not see the girl's face completely for the shade within the carriage was deep, but it revealed enough in the shifting light to glimpse glorious eyes like blue jewels and red lips like garnets. In response, those red and exquisite lips arched into the vague ghost of a trusting smile and her splendid gaze fixed upon Emma and looked nowhere other.

Mademoiselle Perrodon and Emma were seated opposite each other at a round table in the drawing room. Mademoiselle was pointing to her lips. Slouching in her chair Emma was watching but hardly felt like responding.

"Der munt," said she in response to Mademoiselle's prompt, and then Mademoiselle Perrodon pointed to both of her eyes. Emma looked at her uncomprehendingly, her expression as listless, bored and as impassive as a hind's. This afternoon's German lesson was very dull and Emma did not feel at all up for education. Why she had to sit down to drawing room classes and learn a language she thought positively harsh and vulgar she could scarce understand. Mademoiselle would force her to take up the quill next and begin writing the words down as an exercise. English to German, German to English, over and over again and to what end? Well, all that on another day, but not this day! Why, merely a few hours ago, a carriage had overturned outside of her home and a beautiful stranger had come to stay with them! How Emma was supposed to concentrate on lessons under such circumstances she did not know, but despite the calamity of a few moments the accident had proven most exciting. It had not taken the coachmen but a few minutes to put the vehicle to right again and for the mysterious woman in the white veil to speed off on her vital journey. Why, no one had even asked her what her name was! Wherever the woman's brother lie dying had not been divulged and it seemed in poor taste to enquire of the niece where that destination was now. The young woman was promptly invited into their home and the spell she cast was in the physical truth that she was the most beautiful creature Emma Morton had ever beheld. Her new friend, Carmilla, seemed to have recovered from the shock of the accident and was now standing but a metre away, by the door, with a book opened in her hands. She looked up from her page and smiled in Emma's direction. Noting that Emma was not concentrating and that her thoughts were obviously preoccupied with other things, Mademoiselle made a little noise in her throat. The noise drew Emma's attention back to the moment.

"De augen," Emma responded quickly, but she knew that her Governess' patience was wearing thin.

Mademoiselle paused and looked at Emma. Their eyes met, both challenging the other, Mademoiselle silently reprimanding. "De augen brow" said Mademoiselle and waited for Emma's response.

"This is dull," thought Emma, "and I have not the patience for it today." Here she deliberately stalled, much to Mademoiselle's chagrin. "De augen... de augen br..." Of course, it was easy to say 'de augen brow' but Emma could not be bothered, and besides, if you played silly then you were not expected to prolong difficult moments. Everyone would tire, just as Mademoiselle was tiring now. Why, she could hardly hide her growing exasperation. Mademoiselle was losing patience but Emma did not care. All she really wanted to do was talk to Carmilla. From the moment, she had beheld the beautiful stranger in the dim interior of the coach Emma had been filled with joy and with curiosity. Carmilla had been taken back to the house and ensconced in a room upstairs and made comfortable. The girl's aunt had departed very quickly, but with a promise to return as soon, as was practical under the special circumstances of her journey. In her room Carmilla had stayed for the rest of the day, alone and resting while Emma virtually roiled with suspense downstairs. Mademoiselle Perrodon had then seen fit to continue the day as if nothing untoward had happened, and thus the German lesson had begun. The late afternoon sun was already retreating before eve's shadows when Carmilla came downstairs. Although she walked slowly and languidly, she appeared to be in good health and her face was no longer pale. The fright had left her and she smiled warmly as she came into the drawing room. Emma leapt from her chair and ran up to her houseguest. Carmilla embraced her gently and kissed her cheek, but Mademoiselle Perrodon allowed Emma only a small break from her tutorage. After this brief meeting, the lesson had resumed and Carmilla had looked about the library and found a book of poetry to read while she waited.

"Such a simple phrase," thought Mademoiselle as a line creased her brow. She gave a sceptical look in return for Emma's failed recitation. She knew that Emma had had an exciting morning and that what she wanted most was to be with her new friend and chatting, but today's German lesson was going to proceed, and Emma needed to understand and respect the discipline of learning. Emma on the other hand had other ideas and she did not wish to learn German this afternoon. What was the use of it anyway? So that she could talk to the servants? Mademoiselle spoke three different languages, perhaps she should converse with everyone in Emma's stead. Emma admonished herself for her harsh thoughts, but regardless it did not seem at all fair.

"I can't say it." Emma put on a most apologetic and pathetic expression. Mademoiselle shook her head and was upon the point of reprimanding the girl for not really trying, but thought better of it. It was then that Carmilla walked gracefully over to the table and bobbed her head down before Emma Morton.

"De augen brow," she said softly, her voice tinged with a strangely lilting but indefinable accent. And then in English: "The eye brow."

"Oh," was all that Emma could intone as their eyes net. Emma thought that she might swim in those eyes because they were so blue, like the blue of a cloudless sky in summer, like the blue of a placid mountain lake. Carmilla's thick auburn hair tumbled over her shoulders, the length of it curling like waves. She smelled of a gentle and fragrant perfume and her lips were so very, very red. As she spoke, her breath was sweet.

"German's so difficult," Emma professed, half bored, half mesmerised. Today's lesson was very basic dialect indeed but it was really the happenings of the day that had put a difficult slant on things and Emma found herself now unable to suppress the morning's stimulating events.

"But you must try," Mademoiselle interjected with an exasperated sigh.

Carmilla nodded her agreement. "How many languages do you speak?" Emma wanted to ask the girl. "Because, Carmilla, you speak German so well! Did learning it never bore you?" And Carmilla gave a wry smile as if she had read Emma's thoughts.

"I'll try tomorrow!" Emma replied, almost too insincerely, and then she smiled sweetly at Mademoiselle Perrodon. "Well," thought Emma to herself, "if I must simper to have my way, then so be it." Her cheeks dimpled broadly and her eyes twinkled.

"All right," Mademoiselle finally conceded, knowing that it was useless to continue. She began packing up the books, the quill, and the ink. Today's lesson had proven futile. "You'd better get ready for dinner." She made no attempt to conceal her annoyance. "Your father will be home soon."

"Yes!" rejoiced Emma, exalting in her triumph and sprang up from her chair and skipped from the table.

As Carmilla watched her go there was a curious look upon her beautiful face that Mademoiselle did not see, but it was a look that hovered somewhere between adoration and hurt. She raised her hands, still clasping her book, in a gesture as if to hold Emma back. The stranger watched the young girl fly to the stairs and run up to her room and only when Emma had closed her bedroom door did Carmilla turn to look upon Mademoiselle Perrodon and she in turn was looking at her.

The evening came on quite rapidly and Emma was eager to sit down to dinner. There would be so much to talk about with Carmilla that she could hardly wait. She had dressed in a pretty white frock and slippers to match and now she found herself paused in the hall outside of her bedroom. She had had every intention of going straight downstairs but the temptation to see her new friend was too much and she turned and hurried back to Carmilla's door. Emma knocked.

"Who is it?" Carmilla called out.

"It's me, Emma."

"Oh, do come in!"

Emma needed no further invitation and opened the door and went in. Inside a screen was drawn up and Emma's pretty face made a cameo in its open top panel. The bottom panels were of fine Italian tapestry and concealed the beautiful girl at her ablutions. Emma barely noticed that Carmilla was reclined in a hipbath, her auburn hair pulled up and pinned so that it did not get wet, her naked alabaster skin glistening with beads of warm water, her breasts just above the waterline. Carmilla watched Emma as she closed the door and ran up to the bed. There on the quilt were laid out half a dozen dresses and Emma's eyes grew larger in wonder. One dress was vibrant scarlet, one emerald green, two of the others were coloured the most vibrant shades of blue. Draping over the edge of the bed was a dress the shade of a frozen lake in winter. Another was dark like the sea where its deeps are no longer sky dyed. All were made of silk. "Those dresses," Emma gasped, "aren't they beautiful!"

She reached forward and picked up the darker gown. It felt cool like shadows and smooth and soft as it slid between her fingers.

"You may wear one, if you want to." Carmilla smiled as she invited, squeezing a sponge over her skin. She raised her knees in the bath and the rose scented water floated with light bubbles.

"May I, really?" Emma exclaimed, not believing that she could have ever worn such a sheer but lovely garment. Why, if you were to wear that everyone would be able to see everything that you were, and that would be practically naked! Carmilla gave a little tinkling laugh and nodded her consent, watching as her companion placed the dress high against her bosom, admiring its cut and its sheer fabric. The dress seemed to cast its own spell, begging the girl to try in on.

"Emma," said Carmilla, "hand me that towel over there, please."

"Yes," said Emma, relinquishing the dark blue dress for just a moment and dropping it onto the bed quilt. She ran quickly to the dresser to acquiesce Carmilla's request. The girl in the bath put aside the sponge and stood up. How beautiful and exquisite was her body, all its lines and curves perfect. Water ran in beaded crystal droplets over her full and firm breasts, made little streams that trailed over her flat stomach and into the triangular thatch of fine silken down at her pubis. Emma thought it respectful to glance away as she extended the towel, but Carmilla did not seem at all shamed by the display of her naked body.

"Thank you," Carmilla said, as she took the tasselled cloth and daubed at her white skin. Emma turned her attention back to the bed and marvelled at the dresses thereon. She could hardly imagine herself in one of those dresses, for they were vibrant and colourful and exotic, brilliant enough to make her own wardrobe seem positively lacklustre. Carmilla stepped elegantly out of the hipbath. When she had dried herself, the beautiful stranger draped the towel low about her hips and secured it with a tiny knot. The dark hairs below her belly were peeking over the line of the cloth. With slightly exaggerated movement Carmilla stepped up to the dressing table, her hips swaying, and she sat down at the stool before the mirror. She watched Emma in the looking glass. Over by the bed, Emma had proceeded to unbutton her own dress and to remove it, exposing a laced-up bodice that kept her bosom tightly in place. Emma tossed her pretty frock aside and held the dark blue dress against her body, but Carmilla only laughed and began to unpin her auburn hair. As she ran her fingers through its tresses, her great blue eyes lit up with blue fire.

"Your dress is very pretty," she observed, spreading the filaments of her thick and abundant locks and teasing them out, "but it's for a country girl."

Emma paused for a moment and felt suddenly awkward. She had never stopped to consider how dowdy she might have looked before.

"In town," Carmilla continued, "you must be more sophisticated."

Emma gave an uncomprehending look and felt foolish that she should be so ignorant. She held the blue fabric out and stared at it, and Carmilla gave another laugh.

"You must take everything off!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Emma and she looked at her friend with wide eyes bursting in modest surprise. Taking off your clothes was not something you usually did in front of another person. How confident was Carmilla in her own skin that she could even advocate such a thing? The thought startled Emma, because for her entire life, she had been doing what other people expected and now it was being suggested that she do something completely unexpected. It seemed slightly rebellious but she was young and pretty and she wanted to feel young and pretty. Perhaps she should do just that, take everything off! She had been living in the shadows for far too long and this dress was perhaps as much a symbol of awakening as it was a symbol of change.

"Try it once," coaxed Carmilla, who now picked up a brush and began to comb out her hair, her smile encouraging, and her eyes twinkling.

Emma stumbled for a moment, hesitating and weighing up the consequences of such a radical action. Everyone would be shocked if she went to dinner practically naked, but her mind became resolute. There seemed to be no room anymore for foolish embarrassment. Carmilla could be the point at which that change began and an echo of _"__The Lustful Turk, or Lascivious Scenes from a Harem__"___reverberated inside Emma's pretty head.

"You can't put it over a bodice," Carmilla insisted. "It ruins the shape."

Half of Emma wanted to be so very modern and yet the other half still felt constrained by convention. It was a moment of impasse, so in compromise she turned so that she did not face her beautiful guest and undid the laces of her bodice.

"All right," Emma replied, blushing slightly but also feeling oddly liberated.

Carmilla simply smiled.

"I've never worn anything like this," Emma confessed. "I think it's so daring. What will my father say?"

Emma tossed aside her chestnut locks, her fingers fumbling with the last of her laces, and then the bodice fell to the bed liberating the girl's lovely white breasts.

"Oh, he will appreciate it," said Carmilla wryly, her eyes roving quickly over Emma's young body. "Like all men."

How Emma wished that her new friend had not said those words. _"Like all men" _implied that men were all lechers, and it didn't seem right that one's father should be noticing such things. If that is what all men really, thought then young women were nothing more than pretty pieces of flesh to sate their base desires. She did not want to believe that because in her young life she had yet to have the experience of loving a man. It made her feel slightly guilty because she had desired Carl Ebhardt, even though he was the amour of her now deceased friend. Worse was the fact that such thoughts made her recall the forbidden book that was hidden in her bedroom, and that brought with it the strong implication that its pages had always been meant for men _like_ her father. Men who were nice on the outside, but salacious and lascivious within, and that was the strange paradox that made Emma go a little cold inside her heart. Perhaps putting on Carmilla's dress would be stepping one step too far too soon and men might do more than just notice. A wavering confidence had reared its ugly head.

Reading her thoughts Carmilla added: "But I think it will be too big."

There was an urging, a playful insistence in Carmilla's voice, daring Emma to crack out of her enclosure, to emerge from her carapace.

"It's not," returned Emma, pushing the image of her father and the illicit text to the back of her mind. What did it matter? Changes had already begun to alter her thoughts, and besides, she _wanted_ to wear the dress. "I'm sure it's not," she said, shaking aside her hair so that her breasts were fully exposed. "I'll show you." She self righteously figured that if anything, this daring act was at least as exciting as it seemed rebellious.

Emma turned to face Carmilla and stepped into the garment, over the hem and into the volume of blue silk, and pulled the neckline high, turning around to show Carmilla that the gown was going to be a perfect fit. "Look, Carmilla," said Emma as she walked forward, stumbling upon the fabric's flowing length, and tripping on the hem. Carmilla laughed aloud.

"What did I tell you? Take the other dress I have." The beautiful stranger put down her brush and tossed her hair into a soft and ethereal swirl.

Emma's step faltered cautiously as she walked to stand behind Carmilla at the dressing table. Across the girl's naked shoulder Emma tried to glimpse her own reflection and admire how she looked, but Carmilla's lush figure seemed to fill the entire frame of the silver glass. She had the most glorious figure, with firm and high breasts, and she did not appear lean, for no ribs were showing, but neither did she appear overly voluptuous. Her curves were perfect and her skin alabaster and Carmilla shook her head and placed one hand on Emma's forearm. She pointed to the light blue dress splayed out on the eiderdown.

"No!" Emma replied defiantly, this was the dress she had chosen and this was the dress she would wear.

"Yes," Carmilla insisted, "it's too small for me."

"No, I don't want to."

"Yes, you must! Take the other dress. I want you to…"

"No!"

Emma broke away and jumped onto the bed, the fabric slipping from her breasts as she lurched over quilt and mattress.

"I say take the other dress," Carmilla cried, laughing at the same time, her fine breasts swaying, her hair rising in a gossamer cloud. Carmilla sprang after Emma, laughing as she chased the young woman about the room and Emma jumped again up onto the bed but this time Carmilla reached out and grasped her by the hips. The girl collapsed onto the covers in a fit of giggles, the knot pinning Carmilla's towel coming undone and falling aside. Carmilla's weight pressed Emma down, holding her beneath the coil of her fresh and clean skin, the tips of her nipples hardening as they brushed against Emma's. A strange moment of confusion flashed through Emma Morton's mind, it told her that she did not entirely, like the other girl pressed against her so intimately and yet the emotional import was not entirely objectionable. Carmilla leaned down closer so that her hair became a screen that covered Emma's pretty oval face and there was a look in her eyes, a look that was desirous and full of fire and longing. The girl's lips were ever so close to her cheek and she could smell not only the scents from Carmilla's sweet exhalation but she could also feel something else, the length of the stranger's thigh parting and sliding in between her own. The hairs of Carmilla's sex were brushing against Emma's leg and the girl's centre was warm and damp. Confusion and even a little panic made Emma's heart begin to race but Carmilla only gave forth an enigmatic smile. At that very moment, the moment where Emma thought that she must throw the other girl off from her body or be suffocated, the dinner gong was sounded to summon the household to eat. Its long rolling echo sounded through corridor and room. The two young women were frozen in an erotically drawn tableau, and though Carmilla did not speak one single word, a thousand words had seemed to pass that bespoke to Emma of a chaotic mix of pleasure and repulsion. This passion was made up of a cloying bizarrerie and it hinted at the undefined boundaries of Sapphic lust. And what had just transpired was for Emma a totally new experience that was converse to any notion that she might have previously held regarding strange love.

Downstairs, in the kitchen, Gretchin, the young housemaid, picked up the serving tray and gently rearranged tureen and plate. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder to see if cook was looking, but the woman was preoccupied with dessert and did not notice. Cook sometimes did things with haste and Gretchin felt a need to present things prettier by wiping away the careless drop of soup or to reposition a lid. She reasoned that if she made the extra effort then perhaps she would be noticed if the time ever came to better herself; besides, there was always the matter of pride. If you were sloppy in your work then you were sloppy in your head, and Gretchin would not want anyone to think that about her. Not that she should be passing judgements, for that was way above her station to do so, but when she thought about Miss Emma she began thinking about how it must be very untidy inside that girl's head. And being pretty was certainly no excuse for being doted upon, although it obviously helped, but the young woman seemed to go through life in a daze, and living didn't seem to require of her any real mental effort at all. Oh, they said she suffered from melancholia, and maybe that was the excuse for abjuring all responsibility for yourself and your existence, but Gretchin didn't believe in wallowing. It was all very well if you could live that way comfortably, then so be it, but Gretchin knew that there was no time in her servant's life for such things. Was Gretchin envious? She didn't think so. It was simply an observation and a deliberation upon how her class was so far removed from their class, and if you had any sort of brains why, if you were female, were you forbidden to use them? You had to ensure the brains that you had! Surely Miss Emma could not possibly be as vacuous as she presented; why, you might as well be only a doll, a toy, and nothing more. No, Gretchin had no wish to be that, so envy hardly entered into her equation. She worked hard and if she entertained mild criticisms of the wealthy folk she served she was never vocal on the subject. One always had to weigh up which side of the loaf you buttered, because it was more than a matter of principles but rather one of survival. Positions were hard to come by in this province and it was important to perform your best even though your personal politics may not be shared by others. Gretchin backed out of the kitchen door and walked into the hall where Renton was sounding the gong. He was looking upstairs to the gallery but no one made an immediate appearance. Gretchin quickened her pace. As she passed the butler he gave her a leering smile and his eyes roved over her body. Under Renton's gaze Gretchin sometimes felt uncomfortable, for his solicitude was not something that she encouraged. She found the butler quite unattractive, and although he presented well his intentions often did not. Sometimes he would comment on how she looked and sometimes touch her when she had not invited the touch. Yet there it was again, privilege. Even Mr. Renton, a man who was but a few steps on the serving ladder above her lowly rung had a vast amount more privilege than she. He could comment and touch whereas she had to duck and weave. She knew that there were girls in the village tavern who seemed not to care about such matters, about what men wanted nor how male dominance ruled female lives. They let the men grasp and clutch and squeeze their bottoms and their breasts and all for the price of a stein, and she knew that other things transpired, monetary exchanges for a bit of play in the dark. Although she confessed that she was not half curious about what those girls did it still didn't push her any closer to wanting to actually find out. She had not met the man yet that she had wanted to give her virtue to but there was very little Gretchin could do to avoid being objectified. The serving girl told herself resolutely that she was not ever going to acquiesce to Renton's advances upon her body. No, that was out of the question. He would say that looking didn't cost anything, but even in that he was wrong. To Gretchin it made her feel like she had no self worth and no function other than to be a thing of amusement for men. Gretchin shook her head as she walked into the dining room, knowing that the situation could hardly change, shrugging as she placed the platter on the sideboard. This in turn opened up another question: what would she be having for dinner tonight? Well, one thing was for certain, it wouldn't be anything comparable to this repast, and if she openly criticised cooks presentation skills, well, she might be eating nothing at all. She sighed. The last echo of the gong was fading through hall and gallery. The Morton's and their household would be down for dinner soon, it was time to start laying out the cutlery.

Mr. Morton came from his room with a sprightly spring in his step, fastening the link at his cuff as he came down the stairs. Renton was at the bottom, reaching a gloved hand to gently still the reverberating brass of the gong. The butler had hoped to catch another glimpse of the beautiful guest, but disappointingly Mr. Morton had been the first to appear. After the accident Renton had supervised Carmilla's instalment in the guest room. The young woman had been trembling so much that he thought she might pass into a faint before they had laid her on the bed. It had been Renton, who had instructed Gretchin to keep watch during the afternoon, and Gretchin had been diligent, but Carmilla had gone to sleep and did not wake till much later.

At the bottom of the stairs Morton met Mademoiselle Perrodon and they exchanged greetings.

"Good evening, Mr. Morton," Mademoiselle said.

"Good evening," Morton returned. He felt quite happy and hungry too, for he had smelled the tempting aromas from the kitchen and it had made his stomach growl with anticipation. Mademoiselle looked very pretty, but her personal style spoke plenty about her reserve; her gown was a dark grey-blue trimmed with silver brocade, and her bosom was laced up to the throat. No hint of skin was visible beneath her frock and she wore no jewellery apart from two tiny pearls that dangled from her ears. Mr. Morton was about to comment on his degustatory eagerness when the sound of light chatter took their attention. Both looked up to the landing. Emma and Carmilla had emerged from the latter's room and were walking along the hall toward the stairs. Emma was smiling though she felt her heart tripping excitedly inside her bosom. She had put on one of Carmilla's dresses, a filament that had been spun from the blue of the celestial dome, and with slippers to match. A string of stars sparkled along the neckline and criss-crossed the bosom. Carmilla was dressed in a similar gown, sheer and almost transparent, but red, red as blood. She walked erect and with confidence, and as the two passed along the gallery she held Emma's hand. Mademoiselle's features creased into a frown of disapproval as Emma and Carmilla began their decent of the stairs. Mademoiselle's eyes become even bigger, bigger with as much disapproval as they did with surprise. She felt the words of reprimand swelling up in her throat, but they were stifled by the mere fact of Mr. Morton's own expression. His eyes had widened too, and they were full of the vision of Carmilla's loveliness… and of his daughter's too! What manner of Djinn had been released from its lamp to shine its spectral light into his gaze and cloud up his vision! What had previously been hidden from his view was now blatantly on display, and that was the fact that his daughter had gone from dowdy to desirable in the short space of one autumnal afternoon. Morton found it difficult to take his eyes from either girl; first the splash of red and then the soft sky blue. He could see the obscured but evident roundness of breast and nipple and the way the female form floated in each a sea of silk. He saw stars in their eyes and those stars engulfed his male senses and sent little ripples through his flesh. For one short moment he was lost unto beauty until Mademoiselle reached over and touched his arm, bringing him back to the moment. The young women came to the last step at the bottom of the stairs.

"You look quite lovely," Mr. Morton told his daughter, beaming his pleasure and nodding to Carmilla.

"Oh, thank you," Emma responded, eyes cast downwards and affecting a state of demure supplication. She gave a little curtsey, but it was all an act. Perhaps Carmilla had been right after all. All men seemed to be felled by beauty, brought down by desire. It was a new experience to understand this fact, to be in control, or at least know the weapons at your disposal, even if they were your breasts! If it was a little disgusting that her father should take such notice, and that notice be noticed by others, then it bespoke of what desires lay inside him and did not in any way diminish the new surge of power that she felt. There was something liberating in the idea that as a woman she did have a voice after all and that through her new friend, Carmilla, she was now beginning to find that voice. It was Mademoiselle whose frown did not fade.

"Well," thought Emma, "it doesn't matter because the dress in on now!"

Carmilla's pearly teeth flashed as her vermillion lips parted in a knowing smile.

The group went in to dinner. Mademoiselle Perrodon sat at one end of the table and Mr. Morton sat at the other. Candlelight danced over the crisp white linen and washed a soft glow over Carmilla's beauty. The golden shades flitted upon her high cheekbones and burned upon the garnet of her lips. Her blue eyes seemed dreamy and she was staring at Emma. Emma had taken a seat directly opposite her houseguest and waited for Gretchin to serve the tray of cold meats from the sideboard. Renton moved to the sideboard and Gretchin hurried around to the opposite side of the table. Mademoiselle Perrodon observed both actions out of the corner of her eye. She selected a slice of cold meat and gave Gretchin a strange look. The servant girl bit down on her lower lip and moved on with her tray to Mr. Morton. As Mademoiselle ate her repast she gave some thought to what had just occurred with Emma and Carmilla and why she was not happy. This girl, Carmilla, she was certainly something new, something different and possibly something difficult with which to contend. For a start, no one knew who she really was, and her aunt had whisked away so fast that there had been no time for questions. Perhaps it was justified that she be a little suspicious. And when your charge came down to dinner wearing next to nothing, well, that began a whole debate about moral decency. If Mr. Morton condoned this new and liberated Emma then perhaps Mademoiselle need keep guard and watch that the situation did not get out of hand. Putting on a new dress did not mean that Emma was free to do as she pleased, and shirking her education was not something that Mademoiselle was going to tolerate. How she was going to deal with this new problem Mademoiselle did not know, because its boundaries were unclear, but one thing was for certain and that was that she would be in charge and that she would broach no disrespect. Mr. Morton was laughing with his daughter and Mademoiselle arched an eyebrow and took a sip from her own glass of wine.

Carmilla looked away from Emma and once again observed Gretchin's discomfort, and Renton shrugged as if he were in ignorance of the maid's problem and took up two decanters of wine. He came up to the beautiful house guest and briefly hovered above her, his eyes peering down the valley of her bosom, the ruby that nestled between those breasts threw a fiery reflection into his gaze. He entertained the notion, albeit with secret prurience, that he would be willingly dazzled by such a beauty and most certainly should like to put his lips there, in between those creamy bosoms and taste those red and rosy cherries. The girl met his look and her eyes challenged him but he only simpered, politely asking which she preferred: "Red or white, Miss?"

"Red, please," Carmilla responded, and Renton poured her a glass of claret. How invitingly red and warm the liquid had appeared as it flowed into her crystal, but when she eagerly tasted the wine it was bitter and spilled upon her tongue like acid. It was revolting and corrupt and Carmilla placed the glass hurriedly and heavily upon the table. Her abrupt reaction did not escape Mademoiselle Perrodon, but Carmilla barely noticed and her lips pursed in a tight knot so as to stem the desire to spit. When the tide of revulsion finally washed out of her mouth, Carmilla sat quietly while the others ate, but not one spoonful of sustenance passed between her scarlet lips and the strangest agony, like some abhorrent perpetual hunger began clawing at her interior.

Chapter 7:

Too Many Fairy Tales

In which Mademoiselle Perrodon is challenged by Emma's illness, how Carmilla becomes more devoted to Emma and of Mr. Morton's visit to Vienna.

The moon alone bore witness, watching from the high sky dome with her single glowing silver eye. Under her sterling luminance a shape emerged from out of the dark and waited at the lip of the world, watching with incendiary eyes. The shape sat astride a great black steed with hooves that were nailed with silver shoes, and those silver shoes caught the light of the moon and threw out sparks when it stamped the earth. The great black horse belched mist from its nostrils, its mane was threaded with the jewelled tails of comets. Soundlessly the rider sung an aria to another, a summons that rang through the dark airs and over the black lawns. This other shape emerged from the nothing. It slithered and undulated as does a silk ribbon in the wind, invading the rose garden with a black stain and twisting around the trunk of the great oak. Some of the bark shivered and winnowed free, falling in a rain of scales and the shadow continued on beyond the great tree and stalked up to the house. There it came in under the trellis and Selene blinked in her ring of purple cloud, exposing it as a great and blotchy palpitating dark mass. The colours drained from the roses in the garden, their buds falling limp in a tortured frenzy, red bled into sickly white, their leaves and thorny stems descending into diseased rust. From this delirium, the nothingness remade itself out of their ashes. Onward the shadow rippled, moving by degrees, leisurely and deliberately, coming in closer to the residence while the demon on horseback watched on and guarded the periphery of the grounds. The shape slipped over the lacework of tangled ivy that grew upon the side of the manor. In horror the ivy clung to the masonry, its stems quivered and shook, desperately trying to twine tighter, a century of fanged interlacing knots unravelling like threads, coming undone in the shadows of the night. In the muted pewter beams the cordate leaves atrophied and changed to brown upon their stems, pale umbrels withered but the climber refused to let loose its stranglehold over the mortars. The bricks were dyed into shadow, yet the vine clung in ribbons of rust and high up under the eaves the doves and the owls fell from their roosts like stones to the ground below, their wings spread over black and dead eyes. No crickets sang a chorus, no dog howled. In the surreal half-light the shape devoured the very atmosphere about it, gulping it hungrily down and rolling and swelling and it expanded, growing bigger as it crawled along, folding black velvet in upon itself and by turns to ripple and unfurl though it sustained no form of reality. Soon its girth enveloped the moonlit façade of the house, spreading over the entire side of the building. The house was blotted out of the landscape. For a short moment, the shape throbbed and heaved obscenely, as if it were a beast breathing fuliginous airs, and perhaps its shape was suggestive of giant wings; perhaps it was not, yet the moon glimpsed this fleetingly in her great argent eye. It was composed of lurid purple dusks, deeper than the night and it shone as nothing dark can shine and it sang such a lovely euphony, the sinuous fragment of a melody played by Seraphim in the furthermost corners of the soul. Emma lay sleeping in her bed, the music filling her dreams and though she knew it not, her heart was pounding like a drum. Her subconscious wanted to sing a reply and in response she reached up a finger and touched the smooth white skin of her bosom and sighed and groaned, anticipating something that was coming, coming to caress her and to touch. It was out there beyond her window; Emma knew this truth, just outside the slim pane of reflecting glass that divided her from the night. Soon it would be in here, in her bedroom, and it would bring with it all the glorious promises of strange love. Conflict blossomed in Emma's sleeping mind, she heard the sweet seduction and wanted to be held, embraced, but she was still terrified. In her dream she understood that this force, whatever it was, wanted her, to possess her, profanely and intimately. A part of Emma realised in terror that if she could wake up, right now, she could survive this love that was stealing through the night, but if she did not wake up then she was damned. She heard herself make a tiny pathetic whimper but in the dream's bondage, she was paralysed and could not respond. Her heart began pounding, to beat as a timpani beats, its tempo rising, rising, heralding the inevitable, her surrender, her final and ultimate conjoining with mad passion. Thief it was, the night, stealing into Emma's sleeping nightmare, pledging joys that could not be finite, declaring unspoken but still fervid vows, empty vows that she knew could only be broken. The darkness hovered just outside the glass, luminary in its unholy visitation, invincible in its beauty. It glittered with sinew and muscle and its bejewelled panoply of star-scattered wings dissolved. It altered and changed. Occluded light had begun to glow behind what might have been translucent eyelids. And those eyes were so blue, so large, as big as the moon, and huge and yet slitted like an animal's eyes. They were beautiful yet frightening, and they did not blink. The shape danced in the shadows like a veil before the wind, the nightmare made Elysian and Emma could hear the voluptuary thrumming of the blood surging through her veins, a torrent that sang its own strident song. She was repelled and yet fascinated, her mind invaded by a wonderful rush of glorious anticipation, the music flowing from the ether, the moon throwing silver fire on the floor, the shadows weaving. A gust of wind blew the windows abruptly open, scattering a maelstrom of dead ivy before it, the billowing folds of some dark and wondrous form tumbling in through the aperture and spilling over the falls of forever. The room became suddenly frigid and the darkness ran silver and agate tendrils over the moonlit floor, running in a pulsing conduit along the carpet. Emma's bedroom became a dark stage upon which her horrors were enacted. Slowly the dark came up to the bed and in her distress; Emma moaned and threw her head to the side. Her eyes were squeezed tight so that she did not see but part of her mind wanted her vision to be filled with all that was glory while the other part wanted to flee. Emma gasped, yet could not wake up, and she threw herself about in her sea of sheets as the night throbbed about her form. It coalesced above her thrashing body from a torrent of thick grey mist, incarnate, a writhing pillar of shadow and haze, pulsing with violet and indigo, ruby and nacre. And closer still it came, a ceaselessly spinning whorl with flapping wings and sapphirine eyes, a beautifully hideous angel of death. Emma gasped and the Lorelei sang sweeter and slid closer. Soon it began to take on a more palpable form. The night crawled, leapt, and twisted with agile fidelity and then it abruptly disentangled from a spread of black wings into the image of a great cat made of black smoke. The phantom beast sprang up out of the maelstrom of whirling dark pleasures and although it was huge, as big as a panther, it landed lightly upon the bed, its claws extended and gleaming silver like sickles. Fascinated the dreaming Emma watched on helpless as the creature grew bigger, its claws dragging at the coverlet, and she struggled to cling to the fabric and to childishly hide beneath it, but the demon pulled it away from her breast. The chilled airs stroked her skin and he skin pimpled with gooseflesh. This was the moment of truth, the moment when all else that should happen would count as nothing, when all would be as dust, for this was surely death who was upon her. Her desire for the handsome young man Ebhardt would be a desire that amounted to ashes; and Emma saw his sculptured face flicker and blink in the dark and disappear. Her dead friend Laura called to her, and Laura was crying from the rigid confines of a dank coffin, but Laura's tears also availed nothing and she too turned to dust. Emma's father's ineffectual ghost twirled into view, an uncertain and unstable ectoplasmic thread of mist that soon leaked into the void. And then there was Carmilla, whose lovely face rivalled that of Helen's. She was so gloriously beautiful, an image stitched together from the silver beams of stars, and yet she was distorted and angry and bestial. Her striking features were pulsing, her eyes as blue as the hottest suns. And when her vision imploded there was only the cat, and all and everything that composed the world of the flesh was engulfed in the mouth of the beast as it opened fanged and feline jaws and hunched down. Emma felt its body, long and warm and heavy moving against her, like a lover poised for the first stabbing thrust. The flimsy fabric of her nightdress was all that separated the caress of its silken pelt upon her skin and it began a slow and deliberate drag and plunge. As the daemon hovered, so did it descend and its feral head came closer, closer to Emma's face and then receded again. It clawed deftly at the ribbons to her nightgown, undoing them and they flowed into the sheets in pale pink streams. Forward the cat thrust again and its lips quivered, ready to place the penultimate kiss upon the girl's mouth. The horror made Emma shrink back harder into her pillow, to turn her head away. She expected the kiss to happen immediately but it did not, instead the cat touched its cold and thin lips to her cheek and lapped at her ear lobe. The beast breathed a fervid stream of rancidity over her cheek and then, holding its claws at the hem of her nightdress, the slivered moons of its paws hovered deliriously over the crown of her sex. The monster cat pulled the sheet lower, lower, and opened the front of Emma's satin gown. Arching its spectral body its tongue flashed between jagged fangs, repulsive and sticky, and that impossibly elongated organ wound down to her bosom. There it wrapped wetly about the ivory globe of her breast, licking at the nipple and dripping with mucilage. A thrill of shrieking horror and of tormented ecstasy sparked through every nerve, and involuntarily Emma's nipple hardened and her heart doubled its pace. And then the Devil's familiar moved upward, making a slow circular motion with both tongue and claw, stroking and cupping and squeezing at her body. The tips of its awls made little indentations in her soft skin and Emma whimpered but was frozen in paralysis. The great cat gave a deep and throaty growl and all the while it traced a line of icy burning coals over the pretty young woman's exposed belly, and then it changed direction again and descended lower, lower. There was a protest wanting to break from Emma's lips, a cry for the torture to stop, yet there was a perverse promise in the song the demon sang in her ear, a susurrant melody of the grave. Emma was caught up in the delirium, for the embrace was an exquisite rapture, an enchantment, a seduction in diseased poetry as much as it was an abomination. She groaned, vulnerable in its guile, and its eyes were huge and blue and their light radiated and seemed to pour into her head. Helplessly Emma twisted her face away and she clenched her eyes shut tightly but the light from the cat's eyes was so intense that it could not be blotted out. She groaned and whimpered and prayed that the darkness and the night and the dream would end. Yet the dark only went on and on and glowed, hot and violent, and was slashed through with exploding stars. The monster cat's hind legs pushed down, and pushed hard, and Emma knew that it was forcing her legs apart. Convulsing she wanted to scream, but the cat stifled her cry with a smothering paw, sealing off the shriek that was tearing its way up her throat. And somehow that hot and colloid tongue was unravelling like a banner, and it left off tasting her white and splendid breasts and belly and began to flick rapidly lower into the cleft of her parted thighs. There was now anguish and fear in the dream beyond anything Emma had ever felt before, and yet the terror was comingled with the carnality of physical pleasure, and the entity purred and growled, inferring false promises of eternal and enduring love. The fevered stroke of the animal's tongue brought Emma to the edge of insanity. At the lip of madness was a place where soft fur and downy pubis converged to become enmeshed upon the throbbing fimbriated periphery of lust. The motion of the ghostly body grinding on top of her and the thick and dripping tongue lapping at her virginal sex brought Emma to the point of hysteria. With her heart upon the brink of bursting, the incubus retracted its hideous organ and leaving a trail of spittle it returned to Emma's breast with salivating lips. And it bit down. It was a fervid kiss, a disgusting, torturous raking as of thorns. There was a lancinate pain, a burning and stinging as if two needles had been driven deep into her flesh. Stiffening and shuddering Emma threw out her arms and the darkness fastened itself like a leech to her bosom. And then the paw let go of her mouth and Emma found her voice, small and tiny, but it was there, and it was rising in the back of her throat, choked up from the well of night that was drowning her soul. Emma heard herself calling out "No!" It was a thin and reedy and weakling objection expunged from her core and her flesh fought against the smoky and palpitating beast and flew through the mantle of her skin to burst from her lips in a terrified, waking scream. Outside in the night the devil on his dark horse threw back his black head and laughed at the moon. The moon glimpsed a row of long pointed teeth before it vanished behind a cloud and its light went out like a snuffed candle, and then it saw no more.

The girl bolted upright in her bed, her nightdress pulled down, its pink silk ribbons in tangles, her sheets a tide of agitated foam. It was cold in the room, and dark, for the moon had dipped behind a cloud, and Emma could not see clearly. Upon her shriek, her first instinct was to throw herself to the side and fumble for the lamp that stood vigil upon the nightstand. Its flame leapt to life as she turned its little brass knob and the room and its furnishings bloomed with jaundiced light and dancing grey shadows. Emma was breathing so rapidly that she found herself gasping for air, almost sick in her terror, and she looked around wildly in search of the great animal that had come to her room and lay upon her as she slept. Perhaps it had crept under the bed, but Emma was too afraid to look. There was nowhere else for the beast to hide. The wardrobe was sealed tight shut and the door was closed. Only the window was open and the beast might have leapt through the aperture and into the night. Apart from the shadows, Emma saw that the room was empty, but that gave scant reassurance that she was safe. She heard the bedroom door abruptly click open, and startled she almost screamed again, clutching at the coverlet and pulling it up to protect her modesty. It was Mademoiselle Perrodon, and she came running quickly to the bed, the door staying wide upon the hall. She opened her arms to embrace and reassure the girl, but Emma shrunk back in terror.

"Emma, dear," she asked softly. "What is it? What is it?"

"I must have dreamed," Emma choked, her eyes almost bursting from her pretty face. Nervously she settled back upon her pillow, her skin cold, her body shaking. She held the bedding tightly with white-knuckled fervour.

"Dreamed what?" asked Mademoiselle, who began to soothe her charge by gently stroking her hair, and Emma began a broken sobbing.

"It's all right," said Mademoiselle, and when the tears had ceased and were wiped away, Emma sat up and pointed to the end of her bed.

"A great cat," she cried, still shivering and clutching the quilt to her bosom.

"It was a nightmare," Mademoiselle told her.

"No!" Emma was convinced, and shook her head. "My eyes were open. I swear I saw it!"

Mademoiselle stepped back and walked around to the other side of the bed, to the window that lay open to the night. It was chilly in the room and Mademoiselle rubbed her bare arms. The moon burst silver from a bank of turbulent cloud and by its aureole beams; the room seem to shift its perspectives.

"It was grey," insisted Emma, "and big as a wolf. It had enormous eyes!"

"All the better to see you with," said Mademoiselle, briefly unaware that she was being insensitive.

"Don't laugh at me," Emma told her and each faced the other in the pale lamplight. Mademoiselle felt repentant and realised that she should not have been so hasty to joke. And yet she could not help but feel a twinge of resentment for the silly and vacuous girl. That resentment might have flickered visibly over her face and given her emotions away had she not concealed it with a forced smile. By the window, a dozen brightly coloured gerberas hung limp and stooped and wilted in their vase. Mademoiselle gave a little shiver as she looked at them. A soft wind poured in through the open glass and she reminded herself to tell Gretchin to take the lifeless flowers away in the morning and change them. Winter would not be far off and the nights were already growing quite cool, and Gretchin could begin tomorrow by sorting the winter bedding and making it ready. The Governess pulled the window closed and secured the latch. The moon shone through an oval of purple cloud, bright and huge. It looked like a great big eye. By its light, the shadows in the room might take on any form that the nightmare gave them, and to the fevered dreamer anything might seem real.

"Oh, I'm sorry," apologised Mademoiselle Perrodon. "I was only joking to make you feel better."

She moved away from the window and walked slowly toward the bed. Emma held the covers tight so that her naked skin did not show. She was embarrassed enough and she did not wish to suffer any further humiliation.

"But you must be rational," the Governess proffered as she came closer, "either you had a nightmare or you were awake and saw a cat."

"A big cat," Emma insisted. "Grey!" She looked over the foot of her bed and then about the room and she almost screamed again, when she heard a cat meow. There was indeed a stripy grey cat sitting in the open door frame, and Emma withdrew in horror and pushed back into her pillows. Mademoiselle sighed and moved toward the cat.

"It's all right," she told Emma reassuringly. "It's only Gustav."

She stooped down and picked up the cat. Gustav protested mildly and wove his tail back and forth in indignant irritation as Mademoiselle held him to her bosom and pressed herself against the door, closing it shut. She stroked the cat about the ears as she walked back to Emma's bedside. Gustav watched Emma with his big green eyes.

"You're very bad, Gustav," Mademoiselle reprimanded the feline. "Emma was terrified of you." It was difficult not to sound condescending, but Emma did seem to be overreacting. As she stepped up to Emma's side the girl recoiled.

"But Mademoiselle Perrodon," protested Emma, "it wasn't Gustav. It was a big cat, grey!"

"Shall I make Gustav big and grey for you?" said Mademoiselle, holding the cat under her arm as she pushed back the lamp on the nightstand.

"There, you see."

Emma watched as the Governess placed the cat on the stand in front of the flame. The cat squirmed and by the lamp's waxy light, Gustav's shadow was thrown huge and dark grey upon the far wall. As Gustav wriggled to be free, Mademoiselle held him tight. Emma did see, but the distorted shape was still only that, the shadow of the cat, and although she half smiled to her Governess in her heart, she was not convinced. She did not want to dream like that again. Knocking on some unwanted corner of her mind there was the echo of a book she had read recently. From its illicit pages might be fuelled the most base of all dreams, and the nightmare she had just experienced most vividly reeked of those forbidden desires. Such things had been previously unknown to Emma and she shuddered with the realisation that her fantasies might have birthed such an incubus. Perhaps the cat in the dream had been Gustav after all, despite the awful and still lingering feeling of reality. It was better to accept that as truth and thus make the effects of the nightmare go away.

"You mustn't let your imagination get the better of you."

"I'm sorry," she told her Governess, thinking it best to agree, and it was pointless to argue because Mademoiselle thought her foolish anyway. She relaxed a little and put her head back upon the pillow.

"Will you sleep now?"

Gustav gave a plaintive meow as if asking to be released.

"I'll try." Emma smiled and batted her eyelashes. Once again, she had been reduced to simpering because no one would listen.

"Good."

The chill in the room had abated, and as Mademoiselle turned down the lamp, she looked across to the window. It was still dark outside but the morning would not be far away. The morning would bring with it the light and the dream would be all but forgotten.

"The trouble with this part of the world," she observed reflectively, and to no one in particular, "is that they have too many fairytales."

Dawn broke with a golden sequence over the Morton house, touching yellow light to the aperture of Emma's window, and throwing a warm and welcome greeting into her eyes. Emma would have loved to be up and to go for a quick walk before breakfast, but she felt so very tired and the dreams of the night had disturbed her so much that she had hardly slept. She could hear the distant lowing of the milking cow being taken to the higher pastures, there was a songbird twittering in a nearby tree, and she could also hear the faint chatter of servants. Cook would have been up hours ago baking _Brötchen_ and _Kleingebäck, __but the mere thought of having to eat that with a hardboiled egg, a slice of wurst and some cheese made Emma's stomach turn. In fact, she had absolutely no appetite at all. She decided to stay in bed, just for a short while longer. She would engage with the household later and Carmilla would come down from her room and they could walk in the garden. Her promise to learn more of her German today would become an empty promise indeed. There was a light tap on the door and Gretchin entered. She was carrying a vase of fresh flowers. _

_"__I'll just be a moment, Miss," she spoke softly as she came in. "Mademoiselle told me to change the flowers. Strange, Miss, I only put fresh flowers in here yesterday. They didn't last." _

_"__No," replied Emma, only just now wondering at the curiosity of the withered blooms. She added a little anecdote that her mother used to put a teaspoon of sugar in the water, "to help feed the plants". Gretchin smiled and thanked her for the suggestion. _

_When Gretchin had gone Emma stared blankly at the window for some moments, not moving under her covers. And then her fingertips traced upward to her left breast and touched lightly above the nipple. Her breast was very tender, almost painful and it ached. Emma pulled down the sheet and examined herself, but there was no mark or scratch, no bruise. Covering herself again she gave a deep sigh and closed her eyes. The sunlight streaming through the window made the room warm and Emma felt drowsy and slipped at length into a troubled slumber, and so she slept for most of the day. _

_And thus did the night over the next few moons register a succession of dreams and nightmares. Every dream brought with it the great cat, and the cat lay upon her and when it did all of the world's vibrant hues drained away to monochrome. Every night each vase of flowers that Gretchin would replace anew would turn sere on their stems, their leaves curling up like charred parchment, their petals dropping in a rain of tears as they bowed unto death. It was always the same. The nightmares endured even into Emma's waking hours, unfading, and there was no respite from them because even in the light of day they haunted her mind. She had begun to think about her mother again and why the woman had killed herself. Was it love that had driven her to death? Is that what love did to you? What a ghastly power then was love that it should make you want to finish your own existence in such a violent rage. Emma's face was white enough, like pastel, but it drained away to chalk at this horrible and invasive thought. It made her think then of her father. He said he had loved his wife, but had he really? "He wasn't even there," thought Emma, when the woman had taken her life. He was in Europe, setting up some deal with the East India trade. And he was always gone for so long. But Emma had been so young then and so foolish and docile, wringing her hands at her bosom during her mother's funeral service and declaring every night thereafter that God was unjust and that she wanted to die herself. Every now and again, when not in the complete grip of melancholy, Emma would walk alone in places that her dear mother used to walk and fill a basket with wildflowers to put upon her grave. Emma realised sadly that those garlands could never have the power to magically bring Mrs. Morton back from the dead, but the blooms looked pretty and faith said they represented the soul. Emma would linger by the grave for hours on other days, reading poetry and sleeping in the shade of the tomb. On one of his visits home Mr. Morton had found her curled up by barrow and cross and had carried her home. She remembered she had not felt very safe at all in his arms, but rather disconnected. His concerns seemed almost perfunctory, even his calling the physician again, the one who prescribed the foul tasting distilled waters and boiled syrups that she was forced to drink. The awful concoctions only induced the need to vomit. Ultimately the Doctor's administrations amounted to nothing and upon his advice Mr. Morton had purchased a house in the Austrian heartland and there he had moved his daughter so that she could no longer grieve over her mother's tomb. Morton had also engaged a Governess to watch and to teach and to be a companion to the young woman. It had been nothing of a surprise to learn that Mademoiselle Perrodon was only ten years Emma's senior. Mademoiselle was twenty nine years of age and a native of _Narbonne, _that French pretty town _first colonised in antiquity by the Roman Empire_. She was quite attractive and remarkably astute and highly skilled in languages. She spoke French, German, Italian and English and had come from a reputable background. Her family had been of a reasonable class, and had once been wealthy, but now they had fallen on difficult times. As there was not enough money in the family name to make Mademoiselle a good marriage she had taken up the profession of Governess. This need as a compromise to penury, for being married off was not likely to happen. Yet this did not bother Mademoiselle Perrodon because she held the view that the right moment for such extremes had not arisen, and besides, becoming a Governess opened up wonderful opportunities for travelling and broadening the mind. She often thought, and without one moment of regret, that she was glad not to be married and to be tied down to the dull familiarity of domestic life, at least not as yet. That would have meant having and raising children and being utterly submissive to a man's every wish. Perhaps fate had dealt her one blow that was softened by another. Yet this of course did not excuse her internalized conflict about Emma Morton, but that was something she was simply going to have to deal with in the course of her position, and like it or not there must be some sort of structure to Emma Morton's life. _

_Mr. Morton placed his knife and fork together and crossed them over his empty plate. Breakfast had been excellent; even Gustav had enjoyed some sausage. Renton stood in the background, waiting to pour coffee. Morton pushed his plate away to emphasise the fact that his __Frühstück __was_done and that he needed no more food and then sipped at a cup of tea. Morton himself had been practicing the German language and he prided himself on the fact. Soon he would be able to do as the natives did and life would be so much better. He looked up as Mademoiselle Perrodon came into the breakfast room and quickly swallowed his brew, rising from his seat as he did so. He pulled a chair out from the table so that Mademoiselle could sit.

"I've let Emma sleep on," she informed him. "She had a bad nightmare again."

"It's beginning to worry me," Morton confessed, for he had never understood the ways of the female and this new turn of events confounded him. "She seems to have them every night now."

He stood at Mademoiselle's back with his hands gently resting on her bare shoulders. Those hands were warm and they hovered upon her skin, but she did not shake them off. Morton looked down at her upturned face and smiled.

"She's so pale and listless," he continued. "I think she must be fretting over Laura."

Mademoiselle was about to wholly agree when the conversation was abruptly cut short as their beautiful houseguest came into the room. She was blindingly gorgeous, dressed in a lime green gown that made her white visage bloom like a white rose on a viridescent stem. The vivid red droplet of her ruby was even more pronounced as it dangled between her bosoms.

"Good morning," Morton greeted.

"Good morning," Carmilla greeted her host in return. Mr. Morton caught himself staring at those breasts and he quickly diverted his attention by pulling a pocket watch from his vest.

"I wish it weren't necessary for me to go to Vienna today," he directed his words to Mademoiselle, "but you'll write to me, let me know how she is."

"Naturally, Mr. Morton," Mademoiselle responded. The responsibility helped to inflate her position of power and that made her feel important.

Morton tucked his watch away and stepped passed Carmilla. The girl did not look at him as he walked around her; instead she cast her eyes downward and toyed with the cutlery set out on the table. Mr. Morton stopped in the frame of the French doors that led to the sitting room and he paused and turned and addressed Mademoiselle again.

"Why don't you call in the Doctor?" Morton suggested, "I'm sure a tonic would do her good. I'm sure it's just nerves."

Mademoiselle Perrodon agreed, flattered that Mr. Morton was now seeing her as capable enough to run the house in his absence. Doctor Voglreiter would have a long ride from the village, but he was the only physician for many kilometres and Mademoiselle would need dispatch Renton with the request. She smiled with self pride.

"Of course," returned Mademoiselle, but Carmilla, who had been listening, opened her eyes wide, but no one saw. The smile on her carmine lips melted away and her flawless features were etched with the shadow of a troubled frown.

"Mr. Morton," Carmilla spoke, gently but firmly, turning to face the gentleman at her back. "I will take care of Emma as though she were my own sister."

Reassured Morton smiled his approval. "I'll just look in and see how she is before I go."

Renton had moved to Mademoiselle's side and lifted the lid from a tray of poached eggs. The Governess raised her hand and waved him away, and hurrying, so as to catch Mr. Morton up, almost sprang from her chair and ran after him.

"I'll come with you," she said aloud and Renton watched her go. He felt for certain that the Governess resented him, looked down at him even. She had been simpering to Mr. Morton and what she hoped to achieve was obvious, the fact that she intended to make for a comfortable union with the master. Renton felt certain of this and if it were so then she would have the power to make life unpleasant for him. He knew she had no liking for him and neither did he for her, but perhaps the true lesson to be learned here was that she should perhaps not be so dismissive of the servants. She did seem to cultivate an air of importance, but that didn't wash with Renton, and if the simmering resentment continued there was bound to be conflict. In this part of the world the French were not so highly respected, and Renton smirked as the Governess ran to catch Mr. Morton on the stairs. He turned and offered Carmilla the breakfast eggs but she too refused, gently smiling, her blue eyes meeting his own. Renton felt a slight quickening of his pulse.

"No, thank you," said Carmilla. "I'm not hungry."

Mr. Morton's carriage kept a steady pace across the county, the road winding by field and forest. It had only just rained and parts of the road were muddy. He had been travelling for the best part of an hour when his carriage, pulled by two white mares, came to a halt in the way. A team of young men were repairing the broken rear axle of a leiterwagen wagon, its load of hay and firewood had been unloaded from its laddered frame and piled up by the wayside. The wagon had slipped in a rut and pitched over, snapping its axel clean in half. Carl Ebhardt was supervising the repair and his men were In the middle of heaving the wagon up with a makeshift jack fashioned from a felled tree. Morton looked from his window and saw the young man. The Englishman was happy to confess that there was a very capable person in Ebhardt and he called the young manager over to his coach.

"Carl!"

"Good to see you, sir."

Ebhardt reached through into Morton's carriage and shook the gentleman's hand.

"How's Emma?" he enquired.

""Not too well, just recently," confessed Mr. Morton. He did not say that he had no idea what was wrong with his daughter and he did not want to suggest the fresh onset of melancholia. "A bit upset," he ventured, "about Laura."

No doubt that had been the trigger, and Emma was already a delicate child.

"I'm just off on a business trip to Vienna," Morton added, glancing to the road ahead, abruptly seeming a little impatient to be on his way. His expression began as one of worry and confusion but it quickly changed as if Morton's mind had been engaged by other more important matters. His eyes started to twinkle as he turned back to Carl. "Do you think, you'll be able to get over and see her, Carl," asked Morton of the young man, "while I'm away?"

Something inside Ebhardt leapt into flame, his unspoken desire for Emma Morton perhaps? That was the strangest thing, that he was attracted to the girl. In his heart and his head this surge of irrational desire made him feel uncomfortable. Despite the truth that there was no way to explain his feelings, something else coiled about his insides as well, a terrible fear that a whole new world of lies and deception would begin again should he even entertain travelling down that path. He had to admit that Emma Morton was very pretty, even prettier than Laura, but one was dead and the other not well and his own personal desires were in contradiction to what any involvement with these girls should dictate. General Spielsdorf had gone away and it had not been divulged when he might return. Ebhardt did not want to speculate how the General would react to any confession about his new romantic inclination for the English neighbour's daughter. This was a nasty set of circumstances and Ebhardt found himself wallowing about in waters that he himself had muddied. He knew of no sure way to disentangle the net, so for the moment he had decided to simply shut the problem down. Having been left in charge of the General's estate Ebhardt knew that he could not possibly leave for any period of time other than to pay the Morton household a cursory visit. Why were things becoming complicated again?

"Yes," he responded, hesitating and reluctant in his own heart. He took a quick glance over his shoulder at his labouring men. They heaved and groaned with the weight of the wagon and one slid the new axle shaft into place. "Yes, of course, sir." Ebhardt agreed and gave a supplicant smile, but knew somehow that he was making a mistake. Where were the lines of servitude and duty ever demarcated? And why did they so often unravel with guilt? "If I can," he added, and the guilt piled on heavier than any stone. Using work duty as an excuse was the only defence he could think up on the spur of the moment, but it wasn't enough to put Mr. Morton off.

"I know you're busy," said Morton, "but do try, sometime this week."

"Yes, I will, sir."

"I must get on," Morton said hurriedly, tapping with the tip of his cane to signal the driver to be off. "And oh," he added as the carriage pulled forward, "she has a young friend staying with her. So there you are, two pretty girls to visit!"

Two pretty girls! Morton sounded so blasé that the thought caused Ebhardt as much conflict as it did desire, and he simply stood quietly churning the words over in his head as he watched the coach disappear along the road. The voice of prophecy was sounding an alarm bell somewhere in the back of his mind and a worried look now clouded his handsome face. He understood that he must go to the Morton estate now, there was no way that he could not, for the lines of duty and desire had just become much further entangled than he might ever have wished. And something told him that he needed to go, for if he didn't…

_As Emma deliberated the rapid frequency of her bad dreams, because there was no cessation to them, her mind sought to travel down paths that she had vowed not to go. She told herself that she must fight their intensity, but each night as the week passed and became the next, they became more pronounced, growing with a hideous strength that left the young woman weak and debilitated. At night she lived in terror of the cat and during the day she could barely call up enough strength to move. Although her room had become an oubliette for nightmares Emma found that she did not wish to come downstairs during the day, but Mademoiselle insisted. The young woman was certain that Mademoiselle thought she was malingering. The truth was simply that Emma just did not have the desire for company at the moment, and she feared, and with genuine terror, that doom trod with her in every step, shaking her living foundations just as surely as an earthquake trembles the ground. After the seventh day she had begun to feel so weak and very tired that her responses to Mademoiselle's insistence that she take some 'fresh air' became indifferent. She would get up and dress and take a little breakfast and sit around all day. Mademoiselle Perrodon just did not seem to understand. Emma felt that her Governess lacked empathy, but it was almost useless to explain her state of body let alone her state of mind. In her growing fragility it was only Carmilla who seemed to understand and support her. She came to see Emma every afternoon, just before the day was ending and every once in a while Carmilla would take her by the hand and they would go for short walk, but only as far as Emma could bear. It was as if Carmilla gave her strength, as if she imparted part of her own vitality unto Emma's body. This energy would momentarily revitalise Emma and it did feel good to be out in the afternoon air; sometimes they would sit under the arbour and Carmilla would read. Strange though, all of the ivy had gone brown all across the façade of the house and the roses in their gardens had either paled or died. Carmilla had remarked that it must have been because winter would soon be upon them, but it was most certainly an odd phenomenon that perplexed the gardener. On these occasional walks Emma would try to glean some of her new friend's history, but the beautiful stranger either evaded the questions completely by talking about other things or changed the focus of the conversation back to Emma. It was very frustrating, and as the week closed and Emma's lassitude became more pronounced Carmilla seemed to become more devoted to her than ever. _

_Emma sat in the latticed enclosure, on a garden chair in the warm morning sun. Beside her, at a wrought iron table, Mademoiselle stood flicking through a leather- bound history. Although the sun was gentle and washed her pale face with an assuaging tincture Emma felt distant and disconnected from the world. Mademoiselle had been looking over a text, perhaps with the idea that it might impart some educational or moral lesson unto Emma, but the pretty girl in her lassitude would never have been able to concentrate on a lesson today. The Governess for once felt a moment of empathy. She closed the book and pushed it to the side. Emma looked to Mademoiselle with a most imploring expression and her chalky features made her appear almost pathetic. Mademoiselle unfolded a rug and pulled it up over the girl's knees. _

_"__Perhaps you'll feel stronger soon," said Mademoiselle encouragingly, taking the seat beside her charge. _

_"__I hope I shall be recovered when my father gets back." That's all that mattered really, so long as everyone else was happy and not put out. The thought took Emma even further away from herself. _

_"__Of course you will." Mademoiselle felt certain that Emma's lassitude was but a phase that the young woman was going through, a phase made worse by the recent death of her friend. "It's nothing," the older woman reassured. "You mustn't worry about it."_

_"__I try not to," Emma said listlessly, but she felt afraid deep down in her heart. She was consumed by her fears and they would not go away, "but I keep having these awful dreams." _

_Mademoiselle took an audible breath and straightened in her chair. She was about to dismiss Emma once again with a condescending shake of her head but Emma turned and faced her with wide and pained eyes. "It happened again last night. I saw…" _

_"__Now Emma, you mustn't allow yourself to be terrorised by your own imagination. I suppose it was the cat again?" Mademoiselle chastised gently but she was not exactly cold and unsympathetic, yet she spoke with frustration. _

_Emma cast her eyes to her feet. "Yes." Her reply was barely a whisper. _"But Mademoiselle Perrodon, I must tell you, if I don't see these things, then I'm going mad."

Poor Emma was beyond the need for tears now. She looked up again and stared at her Governess with a visage painted in confusion. It was horrible and she wished the dreams would leave her be, but they came now, almost every night and they brought with them a mounting hysteria that was building to crescendo, that left a chilling taste of fear in her mouth.

"Now, Emma, you mustn't talk like that," reprimanded the Governess. Of course Mademoiselle would react just that way because, as Emma rationalised her situation, Mademoiselle Perrodon could not possibly understand. She was not the one having the dreams.

"I judge my own sanity sometimes."

"Now you're just talking silly."

Once again her teacher hadn't the faintest grasp of Emma's fear in the night for she wasn't the one visited by the shadow of the cat, a spectral beast that lay on her like a lover and kissed her and suffocated. If the nightmares continued for much longer Emma thought that she must certainly end up in a Bedlam.

"Am I? My mother was mad, you know that much."

Mademoiselle Perrodon made a sharp little noise, one of surprise that Emma should speak to her so tersely.

"Well?" responded Emma, perceiving the older woman's umbrage. "You tell me that she wasn't."

"Oh, Emma, that's your anxiety speaking not your heart."

"Then why did she… kill herself?" The words came out stalled and they conveyed as much hurt as they did confusion.

"Only she knows the answer to that and she is no longer with us."

"No longer with us," echoed Emma disparagingly. "It all sounds so very perfunctory, doesn't it?"

"Why, what do you mean?"

"We don't think about such things until they happen to us, and then we're obliged to say all the right things, aren't we, to console others in their loss?"

"You sound as if no one cares."

"Did father understand that mother was ill? She was ill; she had to be, to do such a thing to herself. Surely there must have been signs."

"Oh, Emma, your father is a good man and he loves you. Please don't blame him."

"Mademoiselle Perrodon I'm not assigning blame. I'm sure he loved mother dearly, but I fear that blood will have blood. Oh, I miss her so much. Is that why I dream these dreadful dreams, why I am plagued by demons of the mind?"

Mademoiselle of course did not have the answer to the question, and she did not want to know the answer. The girl was haunted by shock, by _mania melancholia_ brought on by grief, and that only encouraged her in her negative memories, and those memories manifested as dreams that seemed real in their horrific battery of the unconscious mind. Mademoiselle found herself speculating upon the gravity of the young woman's mentality. Was Emma going down the way of madness? To think that was one thing, but to express such thoughts took you down a road that led to trouble. She didn't dare say a word to her employer about the opinions she held regarding his daughter's mental impairment for fear of dismissal, and so she had decided that Emma needed to be encouraged to restore herself from the ignorance and absurdity of believing that dreams caused your illness. So to counter she replied: "It was probably only poor little Gustav that you saw again," deflecting the conversation back to the temporal and away from Emma's heightened morbidity.

Emma closed her eyes in defeat. She knew it was useless trying to make Mademoiselle understand. She gave the ghost of a smile.

"Yes, it's just my imagination."

Mademoiselle Perrodon reached over and took Emma's hand, but there was not reassurance in the touch. "Of course it is. Now you sit still and get some rest."

Emma looked at her with a blank expression.

"It's just that your mind is overactive, that's all."

Mademoiselle's words fell away for they were empty words and didn't matter. Emma knew the truth and she could not hide from it for there was nowhere to hide. The dark would come soon and with it would stalk the cat, and worse, much worse, the cat would drag her into hell as it sated its hunger perpetual at the font of her living blood. In terror Emma was poised upon the threshold of the night.

Emma ran a finger over the bone handle of her hairbrush but did not pick it up. Instead, as she sat at her dresser, she cast a dreamy eye into her looking glass. In the mirror, she saw Carmilla's reflection, seated close to the dresser with her back to the window, watching Emma with a languid gaze. Burning within that reflection, she saw the glow of the ruby that hung about Carmilla's neck. With a little gasp as if she now realised something that she had not thought before, she turned away from her dresser and extended a white arm toward her companion.

"That's such a lovely jewel, Carmilla. I have marvelled at it since the day we met. It must be the biggest ruby I have ever seen. It is a ruby, isn't it?"

"Yes," Carmilla replied, her voice husky, her expression almost sleepy.

"It's exquisite!" Emma reached over and touched the gem with hesitant fingers, cautious as if the rubiform stone were made of fire, her fingertip brushing against Carmilla's pearly skin. The beautiful girl stirred and gave a little shudder, raising her hand and pulling away her cascade of auburn hair. The motion revealed her bosom, the pink nipple partly exposed and peeking over the lip of her nightdress. Carmilla smiled thinly.

"It is magical, you know." Here she paused.

"A talisman?" Emma withdrew her hand.

"Far more than that," returned Carmilla, and Emma's eyes glinted in the red refracted light of the ruby. "It once belonged to a beautiful Egyptian queen, over 3,000 years ago."

"Really!" exclaimed Emma, her eyes like a doe's, her lips forming a beaming curve. "3,000 years… why, I can hardly image a life so long ago!"

"She lived in the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt's Middle Kingdom," continued Carmilla, her voice taking on a romantic but grave tone, "in a palace of untold riches built on the west bank of the river Nile. Her name was Tera." The beautiful stranger lifted the ruby from the vale of her bosom, sparkling on its filigree chain. "If you look closely you can see the seven stars shining within."

"Seven stars?" asked Emma, not comprehending what her friend inferred, that the gem was of cosmic origin and that it's light was the captured light of a starry configuration. Emma stared and there within the stone she beheld the octuplet constellation, glimpsing its luminance glimmering over three, vast, and almost forgotten millennium.

"Queen Tera was both loved and hated, for she was beautiful and cruel in equal portions, and her legend tells us that her temple priests were angered with her arrogance and were instrumental in her death."

"How so?" asked Emma, fascinated by Carmilla's tale.

"There are discovered stones and papyrus inscribed with ancient writing," Carmilla responded, nudging in close so that her bosom pressed against her companion. "These writings were indecipherable for many, many years. Most still are. Nevertheless, those that can be read reveal many, many secrets, for the ancients were versed in the art of magic. By such magic they bound Tera, not only in the linen and natron that preserved her mummified flesh, but by the spirit, by the chains of their own corrupted faith."

"I don't understand. Corrupted faith?" questioned Emma.

"Shh, and listen" reprimanded Carmilla, "In the womb of the earth the queen slept for all these thousands of years, and then one night when the silver disc of the moon was in eclipse, and the seven stars were glowing at their brightest, a tremor shook the earth to its core."

Emma did listen and she was entranced. She had never heard such a wondrous adventure before and she hung on to Carmilla's words in a suspense that stilled her breath.

"Oh!" was all that the young girl could manage to say, but her friend continued:

"The tremor caused a rift in the very fabric of time and created a bridge between this world and her world, a slim pass through which her spirit could slip so that she might walk again among living beings."

"She will come back?" Emma quivered nervously. "That's frightening."

"The ruby, her magic stone was loosed from her burial chamber, bled to the skin of the earth like a drop of blood from the mummy's tomb... and sadly it was found by foolish men."

"Who found it, Carmilla?"

"That is not known, but as you see," and she held the ruby in the palm of her slim hand, "it belongs to no man now, for no man can understand, nor wield its power."

"What power, Carmilla?"

"It is written that Tera was divine in her creation and that once she had crossed into the realm of the deceased she could compel even great Set, the Lord of the Dead to abide by her rule."

"Oh, how thrilling and yet scary," said Emma, her imagination taking a flight of fancy even though she could hardly picture the distant landscape of ancient Egypt. On the wall, hung in the stairwell, there was an etching of the great pyramid of Cheops. Her father had had it commissioned after a successful business deal importing dates from Egypt. He loved to show the etchings off to visitors and tell them tales of his travels, even though he had never been to Egypt. Still, the pyramid was merely a triangular shape drawn on stiff paper to Emma, whose knowledge of the bygone past was very limited. She made no connection with shape and tomb and a bridge of stars, and all such things belonged in another land, another world. There were other pictures too, hanging in a descending line in the stairwell, renderings of exotic and unknowable lands, one of the Parthenon in Greece and another of the Coliseum in Rome, both were crumbling ruins. To Emma they were simply just that, pictures of places she had never been, and she had never thought or been taught to contemplate the history they might evoke. History seemed different, exciting, and romantic when it spilled from Carmilla's lips. Emma listened in wonder as Carmilla continued to divulge the past. It was as if her tantalising evocation of the long ago were something that she had somehow and impossibly lived.

"And now Tera's ruby and her magic are mine," Carmilla smiled, "and its power, too!" Her big blue eyes grew wider and her stare became intent as if she were on the brink of imparting some gloriously wonderful but secret revelation.

"Power?" replied Emma. "Over who?"

"Over death, perhaps," answered her companion, her voice quite suddenly becoming excited. She let the chain go and the stone fell heavily against her breast, vibrating to the beat of her heart. "Tera's power was strong as is all female power, yet weak and foolish men sought to destroy it, to destroy her."

"Destroy her?" asked Emma, not at all understanding, "For what purpose?"

For a moment Carmilla was silent and the excitement left her face, trailed out of her voice and then she shrugged. "Yes indeed," she spoke in an abruptly deflated tone as she turned to look at her reflection in the looking glass. On some deep and subliminal level she knew that her struggle in the world was as useless as was Tera's, and that Emma, innocent as she was could hardly understand that she and all women lived at the behest of men. "Why should we seek for intervention in our lives and why should we acknowledge our own desires?"

"Perhaps we should, Carmilla." Emma replied, vaguely insightful in her observation of life's truth. We have everything we require, surely, except the liberty of our hearts."

"Yes," said Carmilla, sighing. She had churned the truth over in her head many times and had concluded that if you wanted the power to merely live your life how you wished it to be, then you must be prepared to be punished for that desire. Emma was but a young girl, and she knew not the wide world in which men commanded and ruled and locked young women up like pretty things in hidden rooms. She was ignorant, or at least played at being ignorant, pretending that she knew nothing of virgins held captive in castle towers, in dungeons, in tombs. Those women had no voices and their names were erased, and no one seemed to care.

"So, Tera was punished for being beautiful and strong, or... outspoken?" Emma ventured but was unsure that she was giving the correct response. The idea of female enclosure was not something she could easily grasp even though it formed the structure of her own lonely life. If there were an analogy that linked her lonely and trapped existence to the dead queen's myth of death and reborn power, she was unable to understand it at all. Was Carmilla suggesting that it was time for Emma to wrest her own power from a dead past and come alive? Was this beautiful stranger the agency through which such freedom of thought were possible?

"She was very outspoken," said Carmilla, serious in her expression, nodding as she spoke.

"But that's just a story," Emma countered with a vapid half-smile after pondering the negative aspects of speaking up for yourself. It was all very well to be candid but you might also be perceived as being disrespectful, and the moral of the story seemed to be that if you were you would be seriously punished.

"Not just a story," rejoined Carmilla, "but the truth."

"How can you know this? You talk as if you had been there," said Emma, becoming perplexed at how rapidly Carmilla had become serious. "But that's not possible!"

"Tera lived and her powers were real," Carmilla uttered, pulling away from her friend with a dismissive and irritated wave of her slim ivory hand. She stood up and opened the window. A little breeze rippled in through the lace and made wisps of her auburn crown. As she stared out into the night, her brow creased into a strange frown.

"I didn't mean anything, Carmilla," Emma protested repenting her words. She had come to the conclusion that her guest was so terribly strange and was so easily given over to abrupt distemper. Emma never knew one mood before the other because they changed so rapidly. Carmilla had now sealed up her lips and was intent on the darkling world without. "Tell me more of your story, please!"

Slowly Carmilla turned back from the window and leaned forward, whispering in Emma's ear as she did so.

"The temple priests cut off her right hand, for Tera had seven fingers!"

Emma's face blanched with a little shock and looked down at her own hand, spreading her fingers wide and gasping as she did so. Carmilla laughed aloud and intimated her joke, and Emma felt foolish and laughed too.

"If you look to the north," said Carmilla when the last tinkling laugh had tripped from her lips, "you can see, high up there in the firmament, a ruby pinned in the dark." She pointed out of the window and up into the darkling sky. "It is a blood red planet named by the Romans after the God of War, Mars." And she intimated with her eyes that Emma look up into the night empyrean. Emma followed Carmilla's vision and her pointing finger, but she could not distinguish one star host from another, let alone one that glowed red. They all looked the same to her eye, all of them glittering crystalline jewels that hung in the celestial canopy of the night.

"That light comes to us from the past," whispered Carmilla. "It streams through the velvet ether from some long forgotten and distant point in time. Because of this we cannot see that the night sky is really painted in a kaleidoscope of vivid colours."

"What do you mean, Carmilla?" Emma asked bewildered. "The stars are all the same, like diamonds. Just look at them." They both stared at the heavens, but only a few stars hung in the night sky, up beyond the airy realms and beyond the moon.

Carmilla pulled up the corner of her lovely lips and made a little scoffing noise. "So it would seem," she told Emma, "but tonight Mars is alight with violence and rage, and that rage overshadows what the ancient Romans called '_Septentriones'. _And that isthe constellation of the seven stars." Here Carmilla drew herself up as if some unseen and high power were filling her lovely frame, and she half closed her eyes, caught up in an eidolon that remembered some ancient and bygone experience. Perhaps she was drawing the stars' power unto herself. "Those stars are like pointers," she continued, "like Tera's seven fingers, directing us to an anonymous immortality."

"I don't follow."

"_We_ must not be forgotten," reiterated the beautiful sylph.

"We?" repeated Emma. The idea that women, that female power itself should be recognised eluded Emma Morton completely and in her misinterpretation, she declared that Carmilla had not forgotten Queen Tera. Carmilla opened her eyes and looked into the young girl's face.

"How could she be forgotten if you have spoken her name?" Emma asked, and Carmilla replied softly, "No, I have not forgotten."

"Is your ruby '_Septentriones', _the jewel of seven stars?"

"Maybe it is," Carmilla sighed, "one of the red ones!" The fire in the stone leapt and flashed scintillates in Emma's eyes.

"Funny, isn't it?" said Emma, her voice gone a little quiet, almost distant.

"What is that?" asked Carmilla.

"That I can say '_Septentriones'_ but I can't learn the most basic German!"

"Sometimes we resent learning useless things," responded Carmilla, her expression enigmatic, her words vague.

"Although I read in my own native English very well I struggle just to learn the most basic German! And I'm afraid that without those useless lessons," Emma was now confessing something she secretly dreaded, "I won't be able to find a proper position in life. That's the misery of it all, that I must learn things like needlepoint and music and German, and I'm no good at any of them." Emma paused in her reflection.

"They say," offered Carmilla drily, "that young girls learn such silly things like playing the piano so that their mothers know where they are."

Emma raised her big doe eyes and the shadow of irony crossed her pretty face. "I wish I had a mother to know," she said quietly, and then with a shrug she added, "and a young man to be with. As I only have my father and Mademoiselle, they think I'm either not trying because I'm being difficult or that I'm difficult because I'm silly. All of that to catch a husband no less, and thereby ultimately to relieve them of their burden of me."

"You should not worry about that just yet. The need to catch a husband is a long way away. If there is ever really a need for such a foolish notion, I might add."

"So are the stars," Echoed Emma, sighing in defeat, "a long way away." Love for her might just as well be as unattainable as the glittering stars. She confused even herself because she wanted one thing in contradiction of her own agency and wanted the other without the need to cede to the whims of the world. All this only succeeded in reducing Emma to a mere spectator of her own life, and what was worse, she understood that much. She saw Carmilla's beautiful dresses in her mind's eye and understood how they were a symbol of the beautiful stranger's liberty. When Emma placed the rigid torture of her German lessons alongside this truth, her sense of enclosure only tightened about her skin. If this were allowed to continue, then she knew she could not possibly ever accomplish a future. This internal conflict wrestled with her soul and it seemed only heightened one hundredfold by the prospects of a handsome young man like Carl Ebhardt courting her. There was no reality or truth to it, for he could only amount to a nonentity. His 'Prince Charming' affecting change in her existence could only ever be a ridiculous dream. In any case, why would he be remotely interested in her?

"Yes," replied Carmilla, her voice sharpening to a harder edge, as if she were aware of what Emma might be thinking. "And that's why the stars look so small in the night sky. When we look at them we look to the past."

Perplexed Emma thought that Carmilla was suggesting that perhaps the past should be revoked, because what had already lived and was now dead and gone, only memory's fragments remained, like Tera's powers that wanted resurrecting but were repressed and unattainable.

"I don't understand," Emma looked at Carmilla with wide eyes. "Were you ever going to marry a handsome young man?"

Carmilla laughed in ridicule but did not answer. Instead, she made an ambiguous remark that there were some things it was better not to know. And the implication was that men were one of those things.

"Men will only try to control you," she told Emma, glancing to the window with glittering eyes. She was biting down upon her lower lip as to clamp down any further words that might come forth. It was almost as if she did not wish someone else, someone undefined, to know of their intimacies, someone who might be listening to their conversation.

"How do you know these things?" Emma asked almost absently, distracted by the glow of Carmilla's ruby. Emma's voice trailed off and she appeared lost in a moment of wonder, marvelling at the depth of mind that lay hidden in the ivory coil of her Carmilla's skin.

"There are many things to know," replied Carmilla, "and many things to learn, but let me assure you, men are not one of those things."

"I'm afraid all of that is beyond me," Emma admitted, lowering her eyes, almost shamed. "Yet you seem so erudite, as if you have known the ways of the world for a very long time."

"Perhaps," was Carmilla's elusive response and Emma turned back to her dresser and at last took up her brush. There was no way she could fathom her new friend, in fact she thought that no matter how long they might be friends, she would never really know her at all. Emma combed her strawberry blond hair. "Do read to me, Carmilla," she sighed at length. She felt tired now and in need of romance over self-reflection. "I feel in the mood for a love story."

Carmilla made a small and derisive half laugh and reached over to the bedside table. Here her hand paused in the air and a curious look rippled in her lovely features. Emma's heartbeat skipped and she thought for one ghastly moment that her friend had discovered the book hidden strapped under the drawer of the dresser. But Carmilla simply blinked and picked up the fiction she had been reciting the night before and opened it at the ribbon, making herself comfortable in a chair by the window.

"She shook out her hair," Carmilla began to read aloud, "and she blushed as his face and his lips came down to meet her own. His hot breath washed over her cheek. Pulling her gently towards him he showered her sweet upturned face with manly kisses."

Mademoiselle Perrodon had earlier gone down to the library and now as she returned upstairs she paused and listened to the indistinct chatter and the laughter filtering through Emma's door. She gave a slight smile and adjusted the shawl she had draped across her bare shoulders. It was beginning to get cooler now and perhaps she would let the girls talk for just a short while longer; they were after all young women and if Emma was laughing, then it meant she might be feeling a little better. She left Emma's door and went to her own room to read, the chatter fading as she walked down the corridor.

"This is a silly book," laughed Carmilla, shaking her head at the make believe romance. She snapped the novel closed and was thankful that she did not have to read any more.

"But it's a lovely story," Emma protested.

"I don't think I can read any more of this," Carmilla said at length and sighed. "This girl is so vapid. She will no doubt just fall into his arms, he'll lock her away, and that will be that."

"What do you mean, Carmilla?"

"Why, she must forsake her own life, of course. Can we honestly say that we are free to choose ours? We should be able to choose. Don't you think?"

"Oh," said Emma dreamily, scarcely paying attention to Carmilla's discourse, "if only a handsome young man _would_ come into my life I know what I would choose immediately!"

"Do you really need one to come into your life?" Carmilla replied contemptuously. She had to stop herself from speaking her next thought aloud. She understood well enough that if Emma had her wish she would live to regret it most profoundly. Carmilla sometimes thought that men had a habit of locking pretty things away, pretty girls, because they coveted women as if they were treasure. Why was this country estate any different from a tower room, from a dungeon, from a crypt? All these 'rooms' were remote and isolated and forgotten to the world. At times she herself felt forgotten. In the story, the tower was always covered in thorns and they made the way impenetrable. If the maiden were trapped then she was held in the dungeon and it was barred with iron grating. And the dungeon so often became a crypt and the crypt supposed the coffin. All these places held the pretty thing captive, trapped not only the heart but also the very will to live, and none of it equated to a fairy tale. Instead, it all seemed to repeat the fall of the legendary Egyptian queen. Did Emma really think that any man would treat her differently and that she would live happily ever after? Carmilla doubted it. She had cause to reason that the world of men was a world from which there was no escape. A slow living death, that was the gift of men, and the thought made Carmilla unhappy.

"I do wish Carl would come again," said Emma absently, her big eyes growing even bigger. "He's very handsome." She pictured his face, his thick and curly black hair, his perfect nose, and strong chin. For a moment it was she he held in his muscular arms, she who was swept along and romanced, she who gave in return a loving kiss. Emma sighed in her enchantment but then felt somewhat ashamed as if she were betraying her dead friend Laura by feeling attracted to her beau.

"Who?" Carmilla replied, and although she tried to conceal it, her face betrayed her emotions with an annoyed flicker. "It is likely that he too would make you a pretty thing," Carmilla wanted to say, but the words froze in her mouth. Once the lustre of passion wore off, wore thin, well ultimately it spelled doom of one kind or another.

"Carl Ebhardt," Emma returned, and how she seemed to linger over the young man's name oblivious to Carmilla's growing ire. "He manages General Spielsdorf's estate. Do you know the General?"

"No." Carmilla almost groaned. What ridiculous prattle was this that it bored her almost to distraction?

"His niece was my best friend," Emma lowered her eyes, "and then she died."

"This is too much!" thought Carmilla. "Oh, you chat on like an old peasant woman sometimes," she vehemently ejaculated, her expression hardening, her blue eyes glowing cold fire, "always of death and tragedy!" She rose from her chair and gesticulating angrily took her post again by the window. The stars shone pale upon her almond skin and she appeared even more beautiful in the celestial glow despite her ire, her great mane of auburn hair cascading over her bare shoulders. Carmilla's red lips trembled. With a suppressed but obvious shudder, Carmilla closed her eyes and bit down on her lower lip as if in doing so she might stem the flow of any further painful words. In remembering her own death so long ago, it hurt that she was once young and might have lived a very different life had she lived. Now her existence seemed almost like a punishment. Yet despite this realisation, she still felt cold in her heart and there was no space in there for any handsome young man.

"Carmilla, you are unkind!" Emma was positively hurt. She had expected her friend to understand and to have sympathy, but Carmilla seemed cold and almost brutal in her rejection. Perceiving her younger companion's wounded expression Carmilla's face abruptly softened.

"Emma, you know how it upsets me," she said by way of justification.

"I'm sorry. Forgive me." Why Emma felt compelled to be repentant, she did not understand.

Carmilla turned back from the darkling glass and the moonlight lit her frame in halo. A night bird called from the blackness of the stencilled trees. For a short moment she did not utter a word, but then it were as if she teetered upon the brink of tears. "No, forgive me. I shouldn't snap at you like that."

"You're so sensitive." Emma put down her brush and stood up. She had begun to feel a little uncomfortable, especially when Carmilla swung into one of these strange and passionate moods. At these moments, Emma did not know how to react, it frightened her.

"Only about some things," Carmilla whispered. "And about you."

"Silly! Why about me?"

"Because I love you," Carmilla said vehemently, throwing her arms about Emma, "and I don't want anyone taking you away from me!"

Emma felt a thrill of repulsion and wanted to disentangle herself from Carmilla's embrace but found she had become immobile and almost impassive.

"Taking me away?" she asked, both confused and horrified. "Who do you mean? You know we'll always be friends, Carmilla."

The beautiful stranger let her embrace drop and her face became a mask of rejection and sadness.

And then, as if she suddenly realised her own foolishness Emma ventured: "Surely you don't mean my handsome young man? Why, I do believe you're jealous!" Emma sounded incredulous although the weight of the implication was already pressing heavily upon her mind. Carmilla was so intense and her peculiar ardour reminded Emma somewhat of that forbidden novel she had read, and then hidden so that no one should find it, all those months ago. In that exotic tale the heroine had become involved in a terrible imbroglio of illicit infatuation and desire and forced to participate in unnatural acts with another woman. Carmilla's friendship seemed so often to teeter on the obsessive and outlandish undercurrent of that fiction. And that passion grew stronger as the days passed, as the nights blackened all other thoughts in the tangle of awful dreams. In defence of her passion, Carmilla seemed very nearly in denial of true love's first glimmering attraction.

Carmilla arched her eyebrows and her demeanour became defensive. "Why should I not be?"

"Why? Because it's not the same thing," Emma protested. "It's different." And then as if by way of consolation she added, "You know we'll always be friends, Carmilla."

The beautiful stranger stroked Emma's hair, looming over her like a shadow, her arms rising up and spreading like dark and gossamer wings. She cupped Emma's heart-shaped face in her palms, her thumbs tracing the bow of her lips and Carmilla gazed into Emma's saucer-shaped eyes. Carmilla trembled and her eyes searched the very depths of Emma's soul, and Emma trembled too. And holding the pretty girl in the moonlight Carmilla brought her face in close so that her cheek almost brushed the other's cheek.

"I want you to love me for all your life!" she implored and Emma did not know how to answer, but she felt her heart trip and a strange chill swept through her body.

And then the bedroom door opened and Mademoiselle Perrodon broke the extraordinary tableaux with the sound of her voice. She was dressed ready for bed, a crocheted shawl draped across her shoulder.

"Come along," Mademoiselle said, holding the door open. "That's enough chatter for tonight."

Carmilla smiled and the intensity of her passion evaporated in an instant. "Goodnight, Emma," she said playfully as if the preceding conversation had not even happened, placing a light kiss on the young girl's cheek. She drifted from Emma's side with slow and deliberate steps and slid by Mademoiselle Perrodon as she passed through the door. Emma stood as still as a plank and watched as Mademoiselle pulled the door closed.

"Goodnight, Mademoiselle Perrodon," said Carmilla, pausing and meeting the older woman's eyes. Their vision met and locked albeit for one scant second, but there was something in Carmilla's glance that spoke of an invitation and Mademoiselle felt a strange fire suddenly alight under her skin. "You are so kind," the girl added, leaning forward and kissing the Governess on the cheek. The kiss lingered for a moment longer than is usual and Mademoiselle felt a flash of heat. Carmilla turned and moved towards her bedroom door, her lithe figure swaying slightly and its shape visible through the transparent fabric of her nightdress. The Governess felt her throat go dry and she quickly turned away.

Emma Morton stood in her room, alone and bewildered. She was quivering, and so to steady herself she sat down at the stool before her dresser. Amid the fragments of insanity that scattered her mind, she knew that what had just happened was very real. A knot of sickness tightened in her belly. Outside, high up in the sky, the moon watched her but to Emma its silver light only illuminated darker and dangerous emotions. Such emotions had the power to wither a young love such as hers and she did not know what to do. And so she sat for a while under a pall of uncomfortable silence wondering if indeed she were trapped, locked up and with no voice, and she began to tremble violently and then to cry.

Pestilence ravaged midnight. Bleeding from a mouth of shadows, it slid through the forest with alarming speed. The moon had risen and the stars over sprinkled the heavens, but they were blind to the crawling nightmare that wove between trunk and bough and silver leaf. The pestilence floated in the air, pushing a wave of fumigation before it. Forest creatures picked up the scent, panicked and fled, birds in their roosts took flight, and only those persons sleeping nearby in the woodman's hut were ignorant to the fear. Revolting and malodorous the thing rushed to the window of the hut and filled the aperture. Its stain was blacker than the night that had birthed it and there it shivered and throbbed. A broom made of bundled straw was propped against the plaster wall; the window had no glass but was shuttered tight against the dark. The dark flung the broom aside and pushed against the timber. The shutters creaked and groaned as they were forced inward. With probing, scrabbling fingers, the dark found the beam that blocked ingress and it coaxed it silently up and out from its brackets. The beam fell to the floor without a sound and the shutters splayed open. The pestilence entered and the room went cold. On her rude pallet of straw, asleep, the woodman's daughter was dreaming. She dreamed that something black and vaguely beautiful whispered an invitation into her ear; she could even feel the wisp of its breath upon her cheek. The breath was sweet, as sweet as lavender and the call was musical. She dreamed the dark asked her to dance and she wished that she might. Despite this, she could not acknowledge the form as reality. A barrier had sprung up between her body and the dark, a boundary that was being crossed by something distorted and yet concealed. Something in the girl's unconscious mind told her that the dream and whatever composed it was dangerous. She tossed about and moaned slightly and the dark and the strange agony that it brought was only rendered worse through her terrors. The woodman's daughter whimpered and a shadow hand formed out of sooty mist and splashed along the wall beside her cot. The dreamer waited with grim anticipation, waited for the dark to penetrate below the surface of the dream, and erupt into her senses, senses that reeled even as she slept. There was a humming sound, no, the sound of something deeper, a low tonal vibration that replaced the whisper, as of a cat purring. And the purring grew louder and the shadow grew blacker and more solid, and it covered the girl with a shroud of rippling fur. Then with the sound came the amplification of base urges that were in conflict with her emotions, of sublimation and of gratification and of something else, something altogether primitive and yet alluring. Heavily the shape settled upon the girl's body, hot and growing hotter, a stifling mantle of thick bristles that covered her from head to foot. It moved against her, pushing hard upon the girl's pelvis, thrusting against her, digging needled claws into her skin. She wanted to scream but could not, for something was filling up her mouth, something vile and thick and sticky. From what might have been a mouth, a feline mouth, a tongue flashed, a tongue rasped with burs and wet. And the organ throbbed and pulsed and rippled in obscene vibration as it invaded the young woman's throat, disgustingly lubricious and choking, gagging away her breath. The creature's feral organ stretched the girl's mouth wide, pulling her lips painfully apart. She felt a dreadful agony, as if her tongue were being torn from her throat and the night began sucking, sucking and squelching at the tide of blood welling up from inside. In that paroxysm of fear the woodman's daughter found her waking mind and her eyes opened wide with terror, but it was too late, for the dark had penetrated her body and was consuming her flesh. She gave a gasping, gurgling spasm and tried to limply fend off her attacker, but her fingers only curled through smoke before they unclenched and were filled with air. Blood vomited from the cavern of her mouth and the pestilence feasted until it was sated, gorging, and swelling until it could drink no more. Abruptly retracting its tongue from the corpse the monster shuddered and belched and threw up, a wave of revolting red splashing over the stucco and straw, the cold airs stinking.

The woodcutter's wife awoke to a sound, a faint scratching noise that became a rattling against the shutter and a low-pitched growl. Reaching over to wake her husband, she found that he was not in his bed. A wave of fear surged through her. If someone were prowling about the house she wasn't sure she could fend them off should they break in. She was surprised that he was not there in the bed beside her. The growl sounded again, moving swiftly in the night from one corner of the hut to the other. Then there came the noise of bracken and sticks snapping and a long scraping sound that dragged along the length of the rude building. She felt the hair stand up on the back of her neck and her arms pimpled into gooseflesh. And then the sound was inside the house, she knew this by instinct, emanating through the thin mud and straw wall, coming from the room next to hers, the room in which her daughter slept. For a moment, she was frozen and seemed unable to move, even though she told herself to get up out of her bed. She must find her husband. But something held her down, an invisible restraint that weighed heavily across her breast. She struggled against it yet it held her rigid, and as she lay paralysed, she heard something else, an awful squelching, sucking noise. The sound was making her sick, and there was a vile smell in the air, as of meat that had spoiled. Clamped down she found that her vocal chords were unable to respond even though she wanted to scream. At last with effort she managed to throw off the torpor and struggled to get up, and although physically shaken she found her feet and ran from the room. Through the adjoining room, she picked her by the suffused light of a candle whose wick was almost expired. The taper burned on a shelf above the spent hearth, and before the hearth her husband was slumped in a chair, his axe was propped against the wall beside a bundle of logs ready for the fire. The woodcutter's wife gave a groan, half of relief and half of terror, for she knew that he would be of no use for an empty brandy bottle lay at his feet. She shook him, but he did not respond. With force, she gripped him by the shoulders and shook him again. Even as she did this and called to him to wake up, an awful noise seeped from her daughter's room. The animal growling rose in pitch and as it reclaimed her ear she had no choice but to move slowly toward the girl's door. The woman did not want to open the door, she knew there was something terrible behind it, but she raised her hand and pushed upon the panel. As the door creaked opened, the woman saw only what the moonlight through the opened window illumined. The room was dim and chilly and a cold wind was blowing about the cramped space, and that space was awash with black shadows and glistening crimson. There was a lot of fluid spattered blackly all about the floor and the walls, and when the woodman's wife looked to her daughter's palette, she beheld a ghastly spectacle. She shook her head in disbelief and her hands flew to her mouth. Any moment now and the woman would vomit, she felt her stomach convulse, and with her legs shaking violently she stepped into the room toward the bed. Her throat was seized so tight with terror that she could not call her daughter's name, could not even speak a word. As she stepped forward in the dark, her bare foot touched something wet and warm and pulpy. A pulpy fluid squeezed between her toes and she looked down. There she glimpsed in a jagged spear of moonlight the colours of the dark in silver hue, but those colours were crimson and ragged and what was popping up through her toes was made of flesh, human flesh. It was an eye, her daughter's eye! The woodcutter's wife screamed and then screamed again. She screamed because her daughter was dead and her face had been torn off.

On the western fringes of Vienna, at about eight o'clock in the evening, in an avenue just off the ring road, in the Gürtel, a carriage stopped before a painted and gilded door. Upon its green and gold panel hung a ring knocker, a Satyr embracing a prostrate and naked female; the knocker was cast in brass and the brass glowed under the fire of the street lamp. Mr. Morton reached up and his fingers curled about the knocker. He hesitated for a moment, casting a quick eye about the street, before giving the Satyr a swift and insistent thud. People had begun to gather in the avenue, walking slowly, some lingering by the sidewalk while others pedalled hot snacks from barrows. A gaggle of ruffian children had swarmed about his carriage, begging for money, and he had thrown them a handful of coins. The chink of alms hitting the gutter sent them all scrabbling and Mr. Morton had strutted briskly up to that green and gold door. For a long drawn out moment, nobody answered his summons, and while he waited, Morton experienced an ever-growing excitation. His heartbeat had stepped up a couple of notches and his glance had become almost furtive. That glance quickly scanned the boulevard again as if expecting the vista to reveal a face that knew his own, but this lost section of Vienna's Ringstrasse found him anonymous and happy to be so. Morton had come to the Capital for economic reasons, and there had been three good English Gentlemen to meet this day regarding a trade proposal. The four of them had sat all morning in a Baroque little kaffeehäuser. They had talked and laughed and drunk coffee and talked some more, and then they had talked some more again until Morton was almost driven to the brink of boredom. Morton's thoughts were not his own and he had found it difficult to concentrate upon this business. Between several serves of strong coffee and various decadently sweet pastries the men chatted on and on like old women and it was not until after lunch that Morton finally broke from the group, excusing himself, saying that he had other business matters to which he needed to attend. Barely able to contain the weird itching drive that was pulling at the coil of his skin he left their company and headed toward Spittleberg. He was weary of the grind of business discussion and the dry politics that accompanied it, and he did not feel any longer in need to talk trade and commerce. The afternoon bid him spend some time killing the last hours like any other tourist in a cultural centre might, wandering about and visiting monument and park. There were those of course who would soon be dancing in the glittering palaces and those who would be enjoying a romantic dinner, but he was not one of those people. Soon the students from the universities would be filling up the cafes, and there would those who would visit the opera, but Mr. Morton did not care for such diversions. Although he really had no need, he purchased a slice of aphelstrudel at a little patisserie and then took a cab to the Zentralfriedhof, there to walk amid the endless aisles of tumuli and sculptured Seraphim. The sky was overcast and lent a grey texture to the cemetery. He was like one removed from the real world as he walked along slowly and read inscription after inscription, forgetting one declaration of eternal love and scoffing at numerous other dolorous messages of regret and sadness. Here were elegantly wrought monuments of granite and marble, a gorgeous celestial city of richly ornamented tombs crumbling silently under the weight of neglect. Between the rows he passed, under eaves of carved stone, to roam mindlessly by biers sculptured with fractured rosettes and hung in rigid tassel. With flowing locks Beauty reclined upon an eternal bower, guarded by an angel clasping a wreath of laurel; a little boy in stone held up a candle to light his path to heaven, the Lord's Prayer was a broken stele at Morton's feet. Stone trumpets made a silent clarion call to deaf ears, harps and pipes and chiselled bouquets were detailed everywhere, defiled crosses and mouldering tumuli were aisles through which the wind blew. Morton paused a moment beneath a Seraph, his wide eyes fixed upon its benevolent visage, but Morton was not contemplating the divine but rather in contempt of it. Fading sunlight crackled through a fan of stone plumage.

After about half an hour he sat on a bench and reclined, lazily, seated under a spreading yew, looking up at a female figure wrought of exquisite detail. His eyes followed the line of its encircling arms. The right hand of the figure clasped a naked bosom and the left clasped the wrist of the right. Above a long and slender length of throat, the sculptured eyes were half closed and the head was tilted skyward. There was rapture in the carved image's dreamy idyll. Morton found himself caught in a reverie, staring at the sublime sculpture and imaging that it actually lived and breathed. Unwrapping the pastry he had purchased he took a bite. As the delicious sweet engorged his taste, he sighed and shut his eyes. A glorious tingling was under his skin; it had started hours ago and it had only become more intense. It itched at his insides, making heat in his loins. After a moment, he gulped and shook himself. A cloud passed over the stone forestry, rippling in a grey wave over broken limb and fanned plumage and along the tiled footpath. When the shadow washed over his own body, Morton cast his eyes across the path. Another sculpture taunted him with its sensual evocation of death. This one was a half figure carved in black marble, a torso with rounded curves and elegant lines; it was raised on an obelisk, its form beginning at the waist, its belly and breasts exposed by the fluid motion of arms and stone fingers that pulled up its treble veils, caught in the act of undressing for the final sleep. The head of the statue and its visage were concealed by the ripples of suggested fabric, but those breasts, they were beautiful and round and high. Morton swallowed his mouthful of cake and then took another bite. He liked cemetery art for there was something seductive in the evocation of death, something that appealed with a strange lure, it made his heart beat faster and his sex swell. To take another person to the very portal of death, to the penultimate moment when the mantle of the skin almost surrendered to the wants of the grave, and to enjoy the pleasures the act gave, that was what he craved the most. The glorious beauty of death possessed its own unique poetry, but bringing someone to the point of death, that was something different altogether, that was power. His head reeled with the whispers of death, with the scents of death and with the caress of death, and to take someone submissive to its brink only brought on a deeper phrency. He could feel his fingers aching to encircle those lovely breasts and then slide up to that splendid throat, there to squeeze and to squeeze. As if in response to his fantasy, the stone bust came alive. It was stretching out its arms, welcoming his stroke, his commands, and his domination. He was tracing his trembling, quivering lips over that cold marble skin, kissing its belly, exploring the indentation of the umbilicus with his tongue. And then he held those sculpted hands and he was tying off those slender wrists with a rope corded from the veils that covered the face. Morton was going hard, his sex was throbbing painfully. And his mind filled up with gasps and groans and pleadings and Morton heard his own voice calling curses and derogatory accusations, and the faceless image struggled against him, bound and gagged and humiliated. And the face he saw was that of his dead wife.

Perhaps he dozed for a bit, for time seemed certainly to have stopped, with his arm extended by his side along the seat, his fingers quivering but still clasping the apple pastry. An owl fluttered from a tree and dipped low above his head. The sun was going down now, the shadows stretching out, the sky streaked with crimson. With a bleary eye, Morton returned from his torpor and looked down at the uneaten half of his strudel as if he could not comprehend what it was. It was all over ants. Rejecting it, he tossed it into the garden, scrunching up the paper wrapper that had bound the strudel and tossing it to the earth as well in disregard. Perhaps it was time to go. The Englishman rose and walked slowly to the cemetery gate. A little breeze stirred the fall of autumnal leaves about his feet as he waited in the street for a vacant cab. It was dark when Morton alighted in the Gürtel. As the street lamps were lit yellow and the first strains of the gaudy nightlife were beginning to appear, Mr. Morton hesitated before the viridian portal and its brass Satyr. He saw heavily rouged women in purple velvet and saffron taffeta, clad from head to foot in the plumage of birds of paradise. These women were popping up upon the street corners and men in tall hats and long cloaks passed slowly by, watching the women. And the noise was growing as the crowds became thicker, as the ring came alive with the theatrical and the solicitous. Taking a deep breath Morton pounded the knocker again and abruptly the door opened. A middle-aged woman stood in the doorframe, her hair was pulled up in tight bun, and her lips were a slash of moist ruby. She stood with her hands on her corseted hips and she looked upon him with a cold and steely eye, paused as sentry, blocking the pass. Their eyes met but the two exchanged no words. She extended her hand and Morton took a billfold from his pocket and dropped a number of sparkling gold coins into the woman's palm. An urchin called out an obscenity from the other side of the circuit and taunted the woman from the shelter of a parked carriage. The woman ignored the ruffian and did not look beyond Mr. Morton as she sequestered the coinage in a velvet purse that dangled from her hip on a corded rope. With a swish of silk, she turned about.

"Bolt the door," she said, turning her back upon Morton, "and follow me."

"I know the way…" he began to protest, but she silenced him with a cold glance and stepped with corked heels down a carpeted hall. On both sides of the corridor were doors, and each door was painted in a bright and gaudy colour. Noises were seeping from under those doors, moans and sighs and whispers of voluptuous pleasures, both female and male. And there were other sounds too, like the tintinabulae of bells and exotic strains of music that wove under curses and groans. Morton's throat ran dry. Muffled and yet somehow melodious he heard a female voice reciting a stream of erotic verse, a musical description of exciting and perverse pleasures. Morton could smell the odours of heady perfumes, of incense and burning candles and the Madam led him to an open salon where half-a-dozen pretty girls lounged in bored apathy, draped over velvet chaises. Peacock feathers splayed in porcelain vases, a gilded Cupid strung an arrow to a bow above the dripping festoon of a garish Austrian blind. Suffused light twinkled from the candles flickering in the chandelier. The light glowed upon rouged cheeks and lips and revealed stocking-clad thigh and corseted breast. A girl sat off to the left on a divan; she had a live snake curled along the length of her arm, its tail dangled and undulated slowly above her pubis, and she was stroking its head. The serpent was fat and might have been as long as her own body, the shadow fork of its tongue flicked sporadically, tasting her skin. Mr. Morton saw that quite clearly. The snake repulsed him and his face screwed up in disgust. This perfumed garden did not need a snake amid its foliage. Another girl sat with her legs spread wide, her sex fully visible; she was reading a leather bound volume and tracing a finger along the line of her painted lips. Two of the girls rose slowly and moved to greet Mr. Morton, one held out her hand to him but he brushed her aside.

"None of these," he told the Madam, dismissing the women with a disdainful gesture, but she responded only with an arched eyebrow and kept walking past the salon and into the end of the hall. The girls that had risen and been rejected drifted away to linger like painted mannequins against a mirrored wall. In that silver glass were reflected in truth all of the wavering images that passed before its argent pool, customer, whore and snake, and it expanded the room as much as it presented the duality of all things. The mirror was unto a portal through which desire might pass to the fantasy and the fantasy was the land where the dream met the flesh. All wonder and fulfilment, all of life's unreality were glimpsed in that argent pool, and life's pains and pleasures would be experienced just down the hall. The Madam strode on for a few paces, passing through a passage that was decorated with paintings of risqué scenes, of women who were being entered from behind and of men being entered in the same fashion. The woman led Morton to the end of the corridor. The murmuring and sighs fell away and Madam took a lighted candle from a sideboard and ushered the way down a flight of spiral stairs. Morton followed her into a well of darkness. At the bottom, in the pit the air was perfumed with incense and mould, and there hung a drape sewn from black velvet. Madam reached up with her free hand and pulled the heavy curtain aside revealing an unadorned black door. Behind that door, thought Morton, would be a pretty maid, she who was locked up in the dungeon, a girl to do his bidding, with no opinions of her own save that she would provide the vessel from which he would drink to gratify his lusts. Madam knocked upon that door. Morton felt his sex hardening in his breeches, a thin film of sweat had broken upon his brow. The shadows and the blackness danced in the wavering candle flame.

A small voice answered the knock.

"Who's there?" the voice queried, quavering as it slipped between the black space of timber and shadows.

"Open the door," Madam commanded, her thin lips a dual scarlet ribbon that moved in the wavering candlelight. The orange candle flame flickered in the gust of Madam's expelled breath and Morton's shadow danced upon the wall. He licked his lips in anticipation.

"Yes, Madam," the reedy voice replied and the door creaked immediately ajar. The light from within was red, stained through tapers that burned within crimson glass, and the red light spilled over all three faces as if they were awash with blood. A pretty young girl was hovering just beyond the doorframe. She was dressed only in a tight corset and stockings. Madam did not enter, but stood aside and waved Mr. Morton within. Before Morton had stepped over the threshold, Madam leant forward and whispered in his ear.

"You know the routine. A woman may yield to a man's vigour but I expect the correct conduct. I want no scandal attached to my establishment."

The girl bowed and stepped back, her cowed eyes watching the gentleman intently as he stepped through the door. Once he was within the door closed with an audible click and Madam's heels sounded her ascent on the wooden steps without. Morton and the girl were alone. He stood in a room decorated in vermillion and slate. There were mirrors fixed to the ceiling that threw back the red and the black lamplight, and the light was filtered through red and black silk. A great mirror commanded another wall.

"What do you want with me?" the pretty girl asked timidly as Morton began removing his cloak, vest and cuffs. Her eyes were like a rabbit's eyes, big and furtive and darting, coloured brown but with red burning centres from the light of the lamps. The girl stood before the wide and full-length mirror, unmoving, dressed in her corset and stockings, a silk flower pinned to her garter. Morton observed his own reflection, but he did not have a face. But this girl with her powdered heart-shaped visage and great spots of rouge seemed uncannily to resemble his daughter, like a doll with no personality. And the daughter was such a vapid little thing, like unto the mother, the mother who had taken a knife and slit her own wrists because she could not deal with her demons of the mind. He pondered his wife briefly, thought of her once tender, young white flesh and how his whip had often stung that flesh. How her naked form had bled from wheals and scratches and how her desperate cries of pain had become cries of despair. The more she had begged him to ease the kiss of the lash the more furious he would become. She had failed to understand his profound authority and that the misery of her life was for the exultation of the joys of his. Her virtue should be forgotten, her tears were only tears of pride, and her body was merely a vessel for his pleasure alone, even if he chained, lashed, cut, or burned its lovely panoply. "You are an abomination!" she had accused one lost and stormy evening long ago, sobbing and clutching her torn body as it dripped tears of blood. She had looked like a spectre in the volts of flashing lightning and each strike of his hand had been smothered by the roar of thunder.

In response to her charge, he had told her that she was infinitely proud and that her pain was arbitrary. By contrast, she should worship the ferocious sting of the lash and that its jubilations kept the seeping core of woman from idle fancy. But her defiance could not be tamed and to reprimand her he had forced upon her various other cruel and terrible indignities. She was made to suffer whippings and tribades, oral and urinal humiliation punishments, all of which had eventually driven her to the grave. And so he had discovered that it was Death who titillated and thrilled Morton, and Death who stimulated the uninhibited forces of his external and internal world. Thoughts of his wife now provoked anger, and in its rising tide, his coil was made rigid with excitement. It was the opposite of his public face, that bumbling and confused but kind English gentleman who was so pale and emasculated that nobody ever noticed the strength of the beast within. He was the giver of pain and his lust could only be satisfied with orgies of flagellation. And this girl, this whore that stood before him, she would enable his pleasure because she was no different to any female flesh, and merely a dolly to be played with, to be abused and shamed and ill-treated. No matter what, these women all bespoke the image of his wife and of her horror refutation for his authority. Yet the woman was grievously afflicted in the mind, and she pathetically bemoaned that his coarse actions upon her were unpardonable sins. Thus, his wife's deep rejection of his command had spurned the beast and so recalling this Morton stripped the whore with his eyes, stripped his dead wife, and at the same moment, he defiled his daughter, Emma. He tore away their dowdy dresses to expose the festering core of all female manifestation and clothed each of them in the garish attire of the slut. This girl would yield unto him tonight, her flesh would take him straight on 'til morning and she would beg him to stop, but he would not.

"Over to the sofa," he commanded, not even looking at the girl as he spoke. She obeyed and clasped her hands before her, white fingers interlaced, red tipped with long and pointed nails. She did not sit down.

Their reflected images in the tall mirror burned with a larval heat and Morton wavered in the glass as if consumed by flame, a halo of glowing radiance emanating from his form. He told the whore that she was now the "Master's girl" and she nodded in agreement. She appeared fragile and breakable, the butterfly whose wings he would clip; her body rendered exactly the way he liked, hair soft with cascading chestnut curls, vermillion lips glistening in the Stygian glow of the red lamps. This girl, this body, was his property now, his to do with as he pleased, he was its owner. The girl closed her big brown eyes for just a second and Morton reached forth abruptly and cupped her bosom. She stiffened and her eyes flashed open, and Morton squeezed roughly. The girl reached up to pull his hands away and he clasped her wrists in a vice-like grip leaving indentations in her skin. Morton's face was impassive but his fingers were cruel, digging in deep and the doll squirmed and gasped and her Master spun her about.

"Don't move!" he warned her, his tone become hard. "Move when I tell you to move. Do what I tell you to do," and his eyes were aglow, "and I won't hurt you… too much!"

The girl's breasts tumbled free and then the man tore the silken flower from her garter, peeling the garter away roughly and tearing her stockings to her ankles. At length she stood naked and trembling, and waiting for his instructions. Even though she was no innocent, and had known different tastes, there was something about the violence in this man that frightened her. That she might have to yield and be supplicant did not bother the whore at all, but a strange portend told her that Morton wanted to hurt her flesh, to punish and debase her, and that she was trapped and could not flee. She knew she could feign her pleasure but how was she to conceal her pain? She might scream until this man was satiated in his cruelty but no one would come. Her agonies would avail nothing for she must play the victim even as she was the victim. For one foolish moment, she thought that she might be able to buy her liberty by throwing herself at his feet, upon his mercy, but that was not possible for to Morton her flesh only constituted the body and the soul of the female corrupt. Not that decency mattered to this man. His obsession was to hurt and that passion was coming upon him as he loomed over her, breathing like a stamping bull, licking his lips, his eyes afire.

On a stand to the right of the sofa were six silken ropes, all were black. They flowed like thick glistening hairs across the marble, and next to them was a bone handled whip, and its thongs dripped like ink over the edge of torment into the red pulsing airs. Laid beside the whip was an ivory godemicé, long of shaft and sculpted at its base where it was studded to a heavy leather strap with a glinting silver buckle. Morton reached over and picked up one of the silken ties, and forcing the girl to bend over the settee he began to bind her wrists behind her back.

"That hurts," she began to protest as the silk tightened and cut into her white skin, and Morton thrust aside her cascade of brown locks and gripped the back of her throat, forcing her pretty face lower. He squeezed so that she gasped and tried to squirm free.

"You are nothing. You are less than a piece of the furniture," he told her, releasing his grip and leaving a red welt. "Don't speak unless I tell you to, and call me 'Master' when you do."

"Yes, Master," she replied obediently. When her wrists were firmly bound Morton quickly undid the laces of her bodice. The corset unfurled and splayed open like the wings of a dead moth, dangling tangled threads, and he tossed it to the other side of the red room. Her exposed breasts ached from the hardness of his hands, the blush of finger marks having made deep pink bruising against their creamy softness. The girl whimpered and tried to turn around but Morton held her down.

"You are a slut," he told her, "a dirty, filthy whore."

"Yes, Master, I am a slut," she reiterated, closing her eyes and tensing her body for the blasphemous moment that would come. Not only had he physically stripped her skin, he had stripped the poetry of pleasure bare with the vigour of carnality. Though her flesh looked pure like a white rose stained carmine under the hellish glow of the lamps, he knew she was tainted and that she must learn the correct behaviour, the slut's place among the superior male. The foul and debauched coil that was woman always provoked a longing within the soul that could never be satisfied. This whore was but an instrument for his lust. He would satisfy his temporary passions with her body, and his pleasures would culminate in an orgy of flagellation and punishment.

The candles wavered and the red light flickered and the black room danced with ruby shadows. The mirror watched on like a quivering accomplice, making the sequence worse twofold. It saw two whores, two punishers, and two whips. Morton spat upon his fingertips and reached down. She thought that he would begin by stroking her sexual artifices but instead she felt his coarse touch exploring her body from behind. His slick fingers brushed against her forbidden places and the prostitute wanted to cry out, but she knew that if she did there would be more pain. Morton's breathing became harder and until this moment he had kept his anger in, but her exposed behind and the perfume wafting from her vulva only drove him mad. He stabbed four fingers of one hand into her, deeply and agonisingly, spreading the rose bud until it was bruised and swollen, and with the other hand, he reached across for the whip.

Chapter 8:

"Everybody Must Die!"

In which a funeral reveals a dark insight into Carmilla's character.

Leaves fell from twigs like spent teardrops as Carmilla and Emma passed along the garden walk by the great oak. Emma put out the cup of her hand to catch some of the falling leaves in her palm. Autumn was mid way through and winter seemed an age away, still the day was warm and the sun was bright. The two women strolled languidly along a path that led to a gazebo, Carmilla insisting that they walk under the trees. The filtered shade dappled the blue hues of their dresses with shadow lace. Emma carried a book to read, the romance that Carmilla had been reciting in the evenings before bed, and she looked forward to sitting in the sunlight and imagining the handsome lover in the story was her own love. It might be Ebhardt who touched her cheek, who kissed her lips... if only... if only. Up to the gazebo they came where a delicately fragrant climbing rose had gone wild about its timbers. Threaded into the roses was a wild vein of ivy. The roses were turning sere and fading, the ivy had taken on a hue more opaque than viridian. Three steps up to a niche trimmed in the foliage, and there they came upon a bench seat. The girls seated themselves under a rain of soft petals and looked back upon the road that had brought them to this spot. The way was a picturesque walk up and down inclines and vales; it led past the Morton house and all the way to the village, many kilometres beyond the forest. Carmilla sequestered her beautiful form into the shade and the shadow, Emma reclined half exhausted upon the open steps in the sunshine. Walking certainly took up a good deal of her strength now and she was glad to rest. A single pink blossom caught her eye and Emma reached out to pluck the flower. The rose bit into her fingertip with a little fanged thorn and she flinched. A tiny floret of blood welled to the tip. At the sight of the scarlet droplet she sighed and it came flooding in again, that horrible, doom-laden notion that her dreams could not be stopped and that she was falling once again into melancholia. As the blood flowed out of her veins so did her life and Emma hated the dreams and the madness that came with the night. Carmilla was watching intently, watching as Emma kissed away the drop of blood, and the beautiful stranger's eyes fluttered and her frame shuddered. Carmilla, as if caught in a dream herself, momentarily felt as if she were somewhere else, in a place where something dark reigned and where her flesh rotted and was reconstituted, where the stars were destroyed and reborn, where time ceased and yet began again. If Emma might have turned about to face her friend she would have thought that Carmilla were upon the brink of fainting. But Emma did not notice her friend's strange reaction as she licked at the tip of her finger and at the redness of her blood. She placed her romance novel in her lap and her other hand strayed to her bosom. A light smear of crimson daubed her lips where the fingertip had touched.

"Emma, are you hurt?" questioned Carmilla in concern, her blue eyes sparkling, her voice low and quavering. It took a brief moment for the girl to recover her composure.

"No," said Emma, who quite suddenly felt parched and thirsty, as if her mouth and throat had caught fire, for the blood had tasted salty and unpleasant. The droplet had flowed down her throat, and it coursed and throbbed in a red iron tide with vaporous tendrils throughout every artery, every muscle and every nerve of her body. Emma felt dizzy and took her finger from her mouth. The speckle of blood stained her lips, glistening like a pomegranate seed. She didn't understand what she was feeling or why, and so she took a deep breath. A change was happening to her, within and without, a sense of something that was impossible to fathom, and it was drawing her into its web like a spider traps the moth. Emma had begun to feel the call of dissolution, to feel the threads binding her bones unravelling. The spell thrilled and frightened her and in the terrible confusion of it all she also knew that she could only wait for its passing, though waiting was timeless and a minute might as well have been a millennium. For a brief moment she had completely forgotten about Carmilla.

When her lovely companion spoke again it was to comment that Emma appeared tired and asked if she wished to return to the house. Emma shook her head and responded that she did not, that the afternoon was beautiful and that she did not want to spend it confined to her lonely prison. If she went back now Mademoiselle would only pester her and the day would be over so much faster and the dreaded night would come pouring in from the dim west. She looked back at her new friend and the girl's face was obscured in shadow.

"Carmilla, why do you always sit in the shade?" Emma asked at length, having noted that her friend preferred the shaded ways, that she always sauntered under the trees and that she never came down from her room until late in the afternoon.

"The sun is too bright for me," countered Carmilla. "It hurts my eyes."

Although she smiled there was something in her expression that bespoke of envy perhaps that Emma was free to bathe in the golden light of the star and that her mortal coil would not burn under its radiant shine.

"Then close them, it's glorious" said Emma, doing just that, shutting out the brightness with a flutter of her long and curling lashes. "You can feel the warmth penetrating. It's like life."

"Like life!" thought Carmilla, shaking her head. How foolish was her friend?

"You talk such nonsense sometimes," Carmilla told Emma, resting her chin on the back of her lily-white hand and twisting up her lovely mouth into a derisive smile. "And if only you understood the truth of life you would not seek the rays of the sun, I assure you."

"The truth?" What could be so dreadful about the sun? Emma opened her eyes and stared at her friend, and while she looked upon that impossibly lovely face she concluded that Carmilla had a habit of saying the most confusing things. As if she had read Emma's thoughts Carmilla directed her glance to Emma and began, like she always did, with a strange and profoundly disturbing explanation that made no sense at all.

"The star gave everything life and it can take it away too," she uttered, looking quickly away and off into the distance, but not looking up at the sun. She wanted to tell her friend that she knew much more about such things than anyone might ever guess, that the sun too would eventually die, like all things died, but that she never could. She was eternal, composed of the transmutable dust that had formed the shape and existence of all that was everything. How could she explain that her core had formed in the darkness of space and that her 'life' was wrought with a hunger perpetual that could never be sated? This hunger, it was older than time and was not a concept anyone could understand. No one could ever hope to realise her condition. And the sun, how it burned, burned both as benefactor and malefactor at once, and that to bury oneself in the shadows was the best place to hide, in the cool of the lonely, lonely dark. Her words and her thoughts trailed away and Emma glanced skyward, looking to the sun, but it was so bright that its glare hurt her eyes. She did not care that the brightness made her shield her gaze, for the star tingled warmth upon her skin and cast about her an aureate halo. The cosiness made her feel happy and she would have liked nothing better than to lie down and rest. Waiting quietly for the words that must surely follow Emma knew that Carmilla would now deliver a weird lecture, the gist of which would be far beyond the capacity of her young mind to understand. Carmilla spoke always as if she knew things that others could never know, as if she had lived for a long, long time and had become weary of the world. "If you stand for too long in the sun's undiluted beams a dreadful sickness will befall you," she warned, "and yet contrarily it also has the power to stimulate defence against other sicknesses," she told Emma in earnest. "It is a paradox, a riddle that none can understand." Carmilla attested to this fact, attested that the enigma had oft played out in the flesh that rotted on the bones of the peasants who worked the long days in the fields of her father's estates. She had seen with her own eyes the sores that sprang up upon their skins and the rapid dissolution of their flesh that followed. The effects were so horrible that it was only the courageous that could look upon their faces, and the dedicated that could tend to their festering wounds. The sun was responsible for that, reprobate that it was, burning like a bright coin in the sky but burning as a furnace of death and agony all the same.

Picking up on that tiny sliver of information that her companion had unconsciously offered, that the girl must have come from breeding, Emma abruptly posed another question. "Your father's estates? Then your family owns land?"

Carmilla ignored her and fell silent. When finally she spoke again she remarked that she had been sick once, sick almost to the point of death and although it was so long ago she could clearly remember it all so very vividly. The illness had come with a miasma in the airs and it had taken hold in her lungs so that breathing had been difficult. Emma looked horrified at this new revelation and asked if Carmilla had been a child in her sickness. The girl merely gave a slight negative nod and did not extrapolate. With the infection she said, had come the coughing, and when she had coughed there was blood, blood upon the lace of her dress during the day and blood upon the lace of her pillow at night. She had suffered the most dreadful and agonising struggle for breath, and there had been sweats as the consumption ate away at the insides of her body.

"Oh, Carmilla, what a terrible story," said Emma, positively horrified. "And you did not die! Thank the Lord."

"No," returned Carmilla, "yet did I remain among the living and for that I shall not thank your Lord!" To hear this new declaration was tantamount to blasphemy. Emma could not suppress the look of shock in her pale face and she told her companion that she should not say such things.

"Carmilla," she responded, "perhaps you should not talk so."

"Do not be offended, but my family have different ways to yours regarding religion. Regardless of that, my father called for the physician, and the physician told my father that he had heard of a strange but certain cure, one that he proposed would surely save me. He had learned this cure from the works of an ancient theosophist, that the sun was able to convey its healing atoms into the physical body. Thus he had me placed in the sunlight, hour after hour and day after day, to convalesce, until the cough and the blood dried up and my skin became the shade of amber. By the sun's vital element the fever burned itself from my flesh and I at length began to recover, but is it no wonder that I prefer to sit in the shadows now and cannot tolerate the daylight?"

"Oh," was all that Emma could say, shocked as she was by the abrupt confession and reeling from the wildness of her friend's vehement rejection of the light and the strange contradictions regarding her life. Emma retreated silently into passive confusion, wondering at what age Carmilla had fallen to this sickness. She must have been very young because her skin was like porcelain and bore no present trace of exposure to the light of the sun Upon the end of her statement Carmilla returned unto silence herself and a few moments passed in which both said nothing at all. During this space the roses quivered in a gentle breeze among the mottled shadows, ivy covered the lattices and within the arbour was cooler than were the open steps. The day had now passed the hour of two and soon the sun would begin in descent and the moon would once again bloom silver in the night. In the shades the two women remained, watching each other but not venturing more talk. Emma did not know what to say so she opened her book and tried to read. It was no good, for Carmilla's words had stirred so many questions that she knew would never be answered had she the courage now to ask. Instead she closed her eyes again and Carmilla watched her from the bench. A butterfly skimmed over her head but Emma did not see, breathing slowly and upon the lip of torpor. She began humming a broken melody as her mind at length drifted somewhere far away. The sunlight, Carmilla's foe, was not unfriendly to Emma. It flowed like syrup in her chestnut locks; it sparked tiny little fires along the length of her lashes and made her lips glisten pinkly. It was a shame that a young man like Ebhardt was not here to lie at length at her feet. He might have been her Apollo sheathing the bright tips of his arrows, ready to pierce her heart. And then her mind extrapolated upon her imaginary love with a thrilling recollection of the _Turk_. Emma felt her cheeks blush. There had been no need for such an intrusive thought but it had come nonetheless, emerged out of the oubliette of Carmilla's talk, like an ominous stain, but alluring and dangerous. Part of Emma wished that she had never discovered that book.

"It is beautiful and peaceful here and I should be happy," Emma thought to herself, trying to divert the rising tide of pulchritude and fear, "but why does my heart ache so?"

Under the lattice with its over-mantle of compound leaves and prickly stems the afternoon seemed to slip by as a dream slips by. Emma ceased humming and almost drifted into sleep, and Carmilla sighed. The auburn-haired beauty opened her own volume with its gilded edgework and rested it in her lap among the folds of her dress. She read a line of poetry by some anonymous and long forgotten poet:

"_How could I know my heart would fall_

_Just like the leaves in Autumn fall_

_That rot beyond the graveyard wall?"_

Carmilla pondered the words, wondering about her own heart and how she wanted Emma to love her, but she was fatalistic for such love seemed impracticable. A breath of wind began to ruffle the tissue thin pages but Carmilla held them down and tried to read more, but she kept thinking about the Emma's blood, that one and glorious ruby spot of blood upon her carmine lips. Unable to concentrate she found that the sentences were floating in an empty space that was forming outside of her body. Her slim fingers became inflexible and she was unable to turn the page. A shrivelled bloom fell from a withering stem, spilling ashen petals into the open tome. Carmilla closed the book upon them and set it down on the bench beside. She watched Emma until her eyes no longer saw the girl's pallid cheeks and cupid lips. A grey cloud had blown in from the nothing to obscure the sun, and Carmilla, not moving, not even to smile, hardly breathing, closed her eyes and they were filled with dark light. She wished that the world could go away and leave her be, that she not be chained to forever and unable to truly die. Under that mantle of the cloud Carmilla shivered. She understood that time seemed to mean very little anymore, it was just an abstraction between two points, two moments in existence. Something was coming, something dreadful and terrible, she sensed it, she preceded it even and the awful paradox was that she knew that it was her own destruction that must catch her. Whatever force was coming was far from passive, but rather driven by the patriarchal hatred that was building around her, just like this cloud, and she sensed the ravenous and dangerous subversion that men would bring upon her world. They were awakening unto the knowledge of the creature that inhabited her skin, the General Spielsdorf was no fool and Mr. Morton only pretended to be one. They were starved in their souls and once they knew her secret they would seek her death. Their search must ultimately find her, but not yet, and despite this Carmilla also understood that they would be changed beyond all worldly measure when they did. Their fates could not be revoked, and neither hers, but she would reach exaltation, something they could not. And then, breaking apart her doomed reverie, she heard the tolling of a bell.

"Look!" exclaimed Emma, pointing in the direction of the road. They heard the sound of a prayer chanted in Latin accompanied by the soft clanging of a bell. A priest was leading a funeral procession, clad from head to foot in a robe of white and reading aloud a rite from an open bible that he held before him. Behind him walked two little boys carrying burning incense and behind them another priest walked, similarly attired; it was he who was tolling the bell. A farmer led a great brown horse by the reins and the horse led a wagon upon which was a pine coffin. Apart from a garland of wild flowers that wreathed the length of the box, the coffin was rudely fashioned and unadorned. Four older women and two men followed behind the cart. All were dressed in mourning garb, the women in black veils, the men in sombre coats and breeches.

Emma stood up and began to descend the three shallow steps from the arbour; her hands wrung together, her eyes upon the point of tears.

"No, don't," Carmilla told her, standing up herself and swaying on her feet. "Don't go before that ghastly procession! Bad luck will be your lot if you precede a funeral cortège!"

Emma looked back at her companion, bewildered, her light step hesitating, but what did she know of ill-omens? She looked again to the wagon and the coffin; and saw the pretty garlands of pure white asters; the same buds were threaded into the combed and plaited mane of the drawing horse. Little bells tinkled in its traces.

"The sound of those bells will herald the fiend who drags you to your death, and that priest, he should know better!" Carmilla ejaculated vehemently. "Nothing but ill will come of this, for he should not meet the coffin till it passes into the graveyard!"

The bell continued to ring solemnly, to ask the living to pray for the departed spirit and to vex the demon who had beset the living with its curse. The chime was pure and it would protect the soul on its journey to heaven. Torn between the spectacle of the funeral and her friend's wild composure, Emma felt a strange agony in her heart. She did not know how to express her sorrow or how to make Carmilla understand that these deaths, but for the grace of God, were not of their own kin and that they still happily remained among their living families. Emma listened to the peal of the bell, and every ring sent a terrible shudder through her companion.

"I should say a prayer," Emma said and the pretty girl's words were edged with sadness as they left her tongue.

"That awful cacophony will no doubt continue all the way to the lychgate, until that coffin is received into the churchyard!" cried Carmilla as Emma returned to stand beside her friend. "Say as many prayers as you wish, they won't help!"

Carmilla's expression dropped and her face paled a shade whiter as if all of the blood in her veins had drained away within the space of a second. Inside her head the chanting had become increasingly loud, wavering in its pitch and reverberating as does an echo volleyed in a mountain high canyon. The distortion hurt her ears and it grew louder and higher until its noise was a scramble of jargon stabbing away painfully at her senses.

"_Da, quaesumus Dominus, ut in hora mortis nostrae Sacramentis refecti et culpis omnibus expiate…"_ The priest sang on, sang louder, a chanted requiem that soon swelled into a parody, a dreadful liturgical falsehood that made Carmilla want to scream.

"_In sinum misericordiae tuae laeti suscipi mereamur. Per Christum Dominum nostrum…"_ The words assaulted Carmilla like a malediction, a conjuration that tore apart the edifice of the mind. Deafening and shriller still the oratory flowed out of the priest's mouth, his hymn almost ear-splitting and offending Carmilla in her renunciation of the Christian God. There was no prayer that would guide nor protect her as she shuddered betwixt this world and the dark.

"Stop it! Stop it!" Carmilla shrieked, holding up her palms to her ears and plugging them futilely with her fingers, her entire frame shaking violently. Her bosom heaved as she gasped for breath, and she set her jaw hard so that a curse should not pass from her lips.

"Carmilla, what is it?" cried Emma in distress, riveted by the violence of her friend's reaction to the funeral.

"Nothing, only that dreadful noise!"

"The funeral? But it's the Woodsman's daughter." Emma looked back in sorrow as the funeral procession passed along the road.

"I hate funerals!" shrieked Carmilla hysterically. "Hate them!" As she uttered these passionate words Carmilla spun around and threw herself violently down upon the bench. Her whole body quaked in a paroxysm of nervous affliction. She turned her face from Emma.

"I thought it rather sad," Emma answered back, "and yet beautiful." She sat down on the bench beside her friend and took hold of the girl's trembling hand. Yet even with her gentle and compassionate touch she could not reassure Carmilla.

"Since when is death ever beautiful? Why, you must die!" Carmilla spat out the words reproachfully as she turned and glared at her companion, and as she did so a flood of crystal tears spilled from her blue, blue eyes. "Everybody must die and all are happier when they do!" Carmilla seemed possessed by a discarnate entity, her awful declaration causing Emma to defensively counter that the Woodman's daughter had died so young, as if the heartless Reaper should make exemptions for youth. A little frisson rippled over Emma's skin. She was aware of it again, that ambiguous and abstract impression that Carmilla was more devoted to her than ever, devoted like a lover is devoted, like one who is facing the ghastly inevitability of loss. The feeling made Emma slightly sick in her stomach for she did not like it when Carmilla flew into one of these distracted moods.

"There has been so much tragedy in the village recently," Emma offered by way of explanation and consolation, for a funeral must inevitably follow a death. Vacantly the girl stared off after the procession, the chanting became distant and faded into the ether, and the mourners became as mist and they vanished into the autumnal woods.

The distortion of sound had at last ebbed away and no longer rang with the bell in Carmilla's ear. The auditory world began to right itself, to become less painful.

"The Blacksmith's young wife died only last week," Emma droned on, unheeding the pain and the visible distress that had knotted up Carmilla's splendid features and stricken her emotions. The girl was sobbing uncontrollably.

Carmilla felt alone in the dark, for how could she make Emma feel what she was feeling? There was no way to tell her friend that she, Carmilla, could never die, unlike that girl, that Woodman's daughter who had now passed beyond the veil of sleep. That girl was spared an eternity of agony, and thus she had no need for the pursuit of love. Carmilla groaned within, ached in a dark place where there was no soul, to watch for eternity all of the people she encountered wither and die. She was to be judged as a monster who was callous and unfeeling, who existed by instinct alone, as one who could never love. And she was weary of it all.

"My father said…" Emma stopped before she could finish the sentence for her friend had begun sobbing inconsolably. She bit down on her bottom lip so as to prevent any further insensitivities leaking from her mouth. "Oh, you really are upset, Carmilla. And I've been saying all these foolish things. Come on, let's go home." Emma realised her friend's anguish all too late and stood up, and with her hand still clasping Carmilla's, she stepped forward. Carmilla held Emma back, and would not get up. She looked pitiful and utterly shaken and Emma could not understand why her friend was so upset. The mystery that was Carmilla only deepened and it further roiled the tumult of Emma's own anxieties. She felt almost unable to deal with the other girl's emotive sensitivities, feeling weak and sick as she was, having foolishly thought that a walk in the afternoon sun might have done her the world of good. Instead it had all turned out badly, with her own strength ebbing and Carmilla emotionally upset. Carmilla shook her head and would not rise no matter how Emma coaxed. The beautiful stranger set her lips into a hard but trembling line as the tears continued to spill down her cheek, her hair fell in an auburn cascade over her shoulder, her bosom rose and fell sharply.

"Carmilla…" Emma spoke softly, encouragingly, and her companion at last stood up but was a rigid as a plank of oak.

"Hold me," Carmilla said brokenly, "I beg you, hold me tight!"

And as she cried she pressed her body into Emma's, her cheek hard against the other's cheek, staining it with wet tears, her bosom soft and yet heavy against her friend's bosom. Emma felt stifled and wanted to squirm away from her companions embrace, but Carmilla clung to her and Emma found her arms involuntarily encircling the girl's waist and she held her for an age unmoving until the last sobs ceased to wrack Carmilla's body and her final tears subsided and dried. Emma herself teetered upon the brink of tears.

Chapter 9:

Erotic Nightmares and Tormented Lusts

In which the powers of seduction begin to permeate the household.

Emma lay in her bed, propped up on her pillows. She had been listening contentedly and had not interrupted as Carmilla read aloud.

"What passion his kisses had awakened in her body and how she wanted him despite the notion that their love was forbidden. With a submissive sigh she gave herself unto him and he enfolded her in his arms and there was rapture in their wild embrace." Carmilla closed the book and placed it on the bedside dresser next to the burning lamp, shaking her head as she did so, fluttering her eyelids and sighing. She had tried to put the funeral and the scene in the arbour out of her mind but traces of its passionate intensity lingered in her head. Carmilla was so strange and Emma thought that she would never fathom the girl.

"There," Carmilla said, as if thankful that the shameless romance was done, "they find love, if not true love." It occurred to her that on some distasteful level that the silly girl in the story would never know true love, but instead because of a ridiculous idea about how romance should be she would be bound by the chains of foolishness, forever and ever to do a man's bidding. This imprudence and the finality it suggested confused Carmilla. She hated the idea of being at a man's behest but there was always one somewhere in the shadows, pulling at the marionette strings, some man with his hand up your back. She did not quite understand the vehement hostility of her own her emotions. The romantic dalliance she had just read only distracted and depressed her and she was glad to close its pages and put it aside. It had become something of a tiresome trial to read aloud to Emma another word of it and to pretend with any conviction that she actually enjoyed the triviality, but she knew her ingénue would beg for another recitation on the following eve and that of course she must concede. Emma blithely refused to comprehend her companion's bored signals.

"Oh, Carmilla, do let's have another chapter. You read so beautifully."

Carmilla placed her hands together upon her thigh, interlocking her slim fingers as if in prayer or contemplation and turned her gaze toward the window. "Tomorrow," Carmilla returned, but tomorrow seemed like a thousand years away, somewhere in a future that did not include her body or her mind. Abruptly she rose from her chair and walked to the window. It was not the first time that Emma noticed this habit of her new friend, that she would stand by the window and stare out into the night. In fact it happened almost every night. It had become something of a mystery unto itself, but of course Emma knew that if she asked Carmilla why she always looked into the night, the beautiful stranger would evade her question.

"You're not going?" asked Emma, startled by Carmilla's sudden rise, her eyes betraying a wounded disappointment and hurt. For some reason she did not want to be alone, not just yet, even though Carmilla's cloying devotion vaguely repelled her. The funeral of the Woodman's daughter had upset Carmilla quite markedly and Emma was troubled by the girl's strange reaction to the memorial as it had passed them by in the forest. There were things that she wanted to ask her guest, things that might lessen her mystery.

"I must," was all that Carmilla returned almost coldly, facing the dim glass that threw back her beautiful reflection. The huge teardrop ruby she wore about her neck glinted like fire in the moonlight. Dangling on its golden filament against Carmilla's lily white skin its image in the glass waxed and waned like an ember.

"I'm sorry." Emma apologised, "You've read too much. I've tired you." Resignedly she knew that she would extract no more information from Carmilla this night.

"Perhaps," Carmilla spoke as if replying to her own reflection, continuing to stare into the shadows, a little twitch playing about the corners of her perfect mouth.

"I wish I felt tired," Emma told her, her voice upon the edge of a higher pitch. "I never do, not at night, just sort of excited."

"Do you?" asked her intimate friend but the words seemed like bored enquiry rather than actual concern. Her eyes were furtively searching in the dark beyond the window glass.

"Yes," Emma told her, "And I don't sleep, at least not for ages. And then I feel so wretched and tired during the day."

"And do you dream?"

"You know I do." Emma's words were as much statement as they were a plea for sympathy. Her countenance took on a pained look and she paused, looking to her friend but Carmilla kept her vigil by the casement and did not look in her direction.

"What are you looking at, Carmilla?" Emma asked, and a shadow of unease began gathering over her smooth brow. "You always look out of the window. You're scaring me. Is there someone out there?"

Carmilla ignored the girl's question with a long and protracted silence that made Emma feel even more uncomfortable. When she did finally speak her eyes were sparkling like blue jewels, not that Emma saw, but perhaps there _was_ someone out there in the dark, in the park, watching and waiting. Someone dressed in the garb of a raven, with eyes like fire and teeth like a wolf.

"Dreams come to us from out of the darkness," said Carmilla as she stared beyond the window and into the purple evening, up at the big silver disc of the moon. She gave the impression that Emma could easily have been a shadow because she did not appear to address the girl as she spoke, but rather she talked with the night on the other side of the glass. Within the passing of a breath her tone had altered, become strangely mysterious. There was a weird portent in the tenor of her speech. "And darkness encourages the fanciful."

The moon had climbed into a stellar theatre, its glow outlining the shapes of the trees. The sigh of a wind quivered in their branches and the park was a stage upon which the silhouettes of statuary in the garden were posed in a stone paralysis of sable pasted on violet. Carmilla watched, scanning the deep darkness, her gaze unwavering.

Reclined on her pillows Emma's huge eyes opened even wider. Carmilla's words had inspired a wonder and a terror within that she wished she did not feel.

"The night fills our dreams with wild, delirious visions," Carmilla continued almost mindless of her companion, her voice trailing off until it became but an inaudible whisper, an almost disembodied echo. "Those visions might yet reveal to us our destinies."

"Our destinies?" replied Emma, responding to her fear with a nervous laugh. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

For a moment Carmilla was silent. When she did eventually speak she made a slight sigh. "Nothing," she said to her companion, "I didn't mean anything at all."

Despite the beautiful stranger's reassurance Emma shook her pretty head, her hair a chestnut tide upon her shoulder, its silken filaments spilling over the bodice of her nightdress.

"You say the strangest things. I worry about you sometimes, you're so mysterious. And that makes me worry how our fates are entwined and about my own destiny. Am I never to find love?"

"What do you want from love?" Carmilla asked.

Emma sighed in reply: "To have a suitor like Carl Ebhardt perhaps, or am I fated like dear Laura and doomed?"

"How very silly," Carmilla responded. "You talk as if only a man could heal the void in your lonely life."

"But living here _is_ lonely and I feel as if I shall go mad in this isolation. I was so looking forward to Laura's visit. It hardly seems fair that she should die."

"You have said as much before," Carmilla said, sounding bored, "and it only deepens the sadness but it doesn't help you." She gave a vague shrug but still did not turn, nor did she leave the window, absorbed by something beyond the glass, by something she studied out there in the dark. "The whole world is mad and even madder when it is mad for love," she said absently, the moonlight playing silvery shadows in her cheek, turning her lips to claret. "Love wants justification, but the world has no need to justify itself. If only all of our existence were but a dream, then we could dream love real."

"Your riddles are beyond my ability to unravel," sighed Emma. "I can hardly begin to unravel the meaning of my dreams either. They're horrid dreams and they seem so real, so strange and lifelike, it's frightening." Emma did not like to think about the dark or the dreams, or the beastly chimera that came in the midnight hour and spread itself over her body. Thoughts of it had begun to plague her mind during her waking hours and would not let her be. In her vague and delusionary lassitude, Emma's mind found itself drifting and fixating on the terrible intensity of her nightmares. There was something about the dreams that were repulsive and yet alluring. To the young woman it was as much an absurdity as it was a revelation. There was a window previously locked and shuttered that was now opening in her soul and it was a totally new experience, but a truly disturbing experience all the same. How did you explain and to whom did you explain that you hated the fever and yet longed for it too?

Emma leaned forward and rested on her elbow, as if those few extra centimetres closer to her friend would lessen the barrier between them and pull Carmilla away from the casement. Finally, with an impassive countenance, as if upon some silent signal, Carmilla turned to face her.

"Tell me," she said as she slowly drew toward the bed, her eyes wide with anticipation. She sat down alongside her companion, very close so that their bodies touched.

"I haven't told anyone. Not everything. I can't."

"_Tell me!"_ Carmilla insisted.

So here Emma found herself upon the dreaded moment of admission, like a penitent at the confessional, how could she tell of the repulsive creature that visited her when she slept? How could she dare admit the carnal pleasure that it brought to her flesh. Emma hated herself at that moment, and the hate and the interior conflict became evident in her pretty face. With wide eyes she stared beyond her companion, concentrating just like Carmilla had on the dark beyond the window pane.

"The cat comes," she began hesitantly, not sure where to actually begin. But to begin with the beast made one think of its ghastly, suffocating bulk spreading over her bedding, growing bigger and blacker and growling and pricking with its sickle claws. "And it sits at the foot of my bed, staring." Emma saw the conjuration even as she spoke, she saw its eyes, great big and large as moons, and blue, sapphire blue, the pupils narrow slits and golden.

Carmilla appeared caught in an intense rapture, listening to Emma's words with awed fascination.

"And then it reaches out towards me and I try to scream, but my throat is strangled." A horrible shudder rippled in Emma's skin and she clutched at her throat as if ice had frozen up her vocal cords. "And then it lies across me, warm and heavy, and I feel its fur in my mouth!"

The girl gagged at the memory and her hand flew to her lips. She could feel the creature, taste its fur, and she could recalled how she not swallow for its pelt filled up her throat and choked away her breath. "And I retch with fear…"

"And then?"

Emma Morton stopped for a moment as she arrived upon the point of realisation.

"It turns into you, Carmilla," she told her companion, and both were amazed and terrified at the revelation.

"Me!" Carmilla exclaimed and then laughed at the absurdity.

"And then you embrace me, and kiss me, and suddenly everything's all right and I'm so happy," Emma gasped, almost relieved that the creature of her nightmares should transform into the most beautiful girl that ever walked upon the earth. The girl felt the other girl take and squeeze her hand and Emma blushed, but Carmilla only projected concern; she was so demure and soothing and consoling and her very presence was a beam of light that radiated gloriously in Emma's very dark place. Yet in professing her love, a love to which Emma knew she could never consciously yield, Carmilla was the calumny at the root of the nightmare.

"But even as you're holding me close," Emma continued, her voice dropping to a whisper, almost unable to say what must be said next, "I feel a pain sharp as needles dragging at me." She paused in pained confusion. "I feel the life running out of me as though my blood were being drawn."

Emma didn't want to remember anymore and thankfully it was impossible to do so. Upon the shrieking scales of a terrible crescendo the nightmares always ended the same way, with the cat biting into her bosom.

"And?"

"I wake and scream," Emma said weakly, and closed the door on the confessional. She did not want to talk about the dreams anymore.

"Oh, my poor darling," said Carmilla in absolute sympathy, reaching forward to clasp Emma's heart-shaped face in her hands and looming in close. Like a lover Carmilla pressed her companions face toward her bosom, to rest upon her shoulder, stroking her hair lightly. "You know you'll always be safe as long as you're with me?"

Emma raised her head and gave the beautiful stranger a blank, unblinking look, irresolution in her eyes. She looked like and felt like a doll, impassive and with no will of her own, and she tried to move back but found that her strength had all been sapped away, even her thoughts were now drifting and she could barely recognise Carmilla. With delicate and gentle movements Carmilla pressed in closer to Emma and her fingers fluttered down the girl's cheek and over her lips, down her neck and across her shoulders. At Emma's bosom Carmilla's touch stalled and lingered as her fingers undid the button to the girl's nightdress. She pulled the nightdress away and the swell of Emma's breasts spilled forth, Carmilla cradling the girl's head in its descent to the pillow. Emma was caught in a trance, like a moth burned by the flame, and she had no will to beg Carmilla to stop, no voice to plead that she did not want the girl to stroke her breasts or to kiss her lips. Carmilla's hair tumbled over her shoulders, a thick and heavy and living mass that fell about Emma's face, smothering and unpleasant. Emma gasped from under the writhing obscenity, groaned with a sick fascination and wanted to cry out but could not. In the darkness without the window the wind shivered about the house, scattering seared leaves across the park, making them tumble through the cathedral of trees. With the wind came the evil. It was splendid in its dark beauty and it sat astride its black steed. It had eyes that smouldered like coals. Something of the twilight and of the elusive and the unreal wrapped its form. In the muted light the dark swarmed with silver-grey and indigo, it moulded a chiselled shape from dreams and tormented lusts. Emma sensed it was out there and she began to cry, but Carmilla kissed away her tears and took the kiss lower and lower until quivering it sipped between Emma's parted thighs. Carmilla moved gracefully in the moonlight, up and down, her skin pulsing and undulating. The golden luminance of the bedside lamp threw a glowing halo about her body. And now Emma could not stem the tide of passion, for the dark had hold of her, tightly and irrevocably, and she found herself soaring to the heights of Heaven and then plunging to the depths of Hell. She could refuse neither option. In Carmilla's touch there was a wonderful heat that brought with it a wet and warm tingling in her nerves. That tingling was electric, galvanic and it spread over the leaping coil of her skin and made a furnace of her sex. Carmilla's lips hungrily brushed against Emma's body, burning a trail of live coals, her fingers dancing like a harp player, plucking notes on Orpheus's lyre, a song that made the soul wing its way to the underworld. Form outside, in the night, Emma thought she heard the flapping of great wings, and the wings churned the shadows of the night into a maelstrom. From the edge of the estate a Dark Angel, a Seraph sang out a rapture to the pewter moon, an aria to obsession and possession. This was surely illusion and it blurred the boundaries of what was real and what was not. The voice told her that she needed no young man to break her heart. All she needed was the love of this girl. And in her trance Emma could not even blink, though if she could have blinked the spell of binding might have been broken. Opening her big brown eyes wider and wider still a torment wracked her body. The dark was a lure and it covered her, covered her breasts and her belly, her thighs and her sex. And the darkness sang its music, played its choral, sweet harmonious music and conjured songs of the corrupted flesh from the very depths of the Abyss. Emma writhed in her bed, in a burning erotic fever and holding in muted screams of suffering as if she were suppressing a torrid personal bedlam, she beheld the light ebb and dip. A spiralling fever washed over her, crushed her will to dust and it was both dulcet and terrible and it filled her with revulsion and longing, and lust's twisting tendrils wrapped every nerve of her body. Her skin was white and livid, sensitive and hot to the touch. Hell-fire ran through her veins like magma about to erupt from the caldera of a Vulcan mountain peak. The sound of the blood rushing through her veins was deafening and this nightmare of anticipation plunged life and living into a state of damnation. Carmilla gave a seductive murmur and raised her head from the creamy valley of Emma's thighs and she smiled. In her smile was conveyed a pledge of all that was gratification and all that was horror. Something was wrong with Carmilla's features, Emma could not see clearly but the girl's visage had become a thing of vapour and sparks, her beauty no longer soft and glorious. Instead there was a nasty, almost cruel hardness in her eyes, and those eyes were changing, swelling, bursting with blue darknesses. And her teeth, gleaming when she smiled, looked sharper and very pointed like ivory spikes. There was something unholy in her smile, something beyond being human, full of an unnameable ecstasy that whispered of a crawling, spasmodic horror and yet an inexplicable joy. From her mouth there issued forth a purling growl and then her face turned back again, her tongue flicking into the sweetness that lay beyond the nameless boundaries of dreams. She kissed and kissed and a strange agony began to invade Emma's body, and worse the obscenity brought forth an appetence, a stimulus, a longing. It spread from her sex and fired every nerve, and the girl clutched at her sheets till her knuckles turned white and she passed from apathy to glory in the space of a heartbeat. In that penultimate moment Emma let the darkness sing her down to even darker dreams and as she dreamed her virginal flesh shuddered into orgasm.

Mademoiselle Perrodon sat at her desk composing a letter to Mr. Morton, as she had promised. The lamplight gave the parchment a glowing saffron hue as her quill scratched a trail of midnight ink across the paper.

"Dear Mr. Morton,

As you requested, I am writing to let you know about Emma. For the moment her condition appears stable, some days she seems stronger than others. This despite the fact that she often finds herself exhausted should she partake in even mild exertion. Carmilla tends to her devotedly and has become the most caring and affectionate friend. Emma is thus blessed as Carmilla has been of great comfort. Yet regarding our house guest, there has been no word yet concerning her family's return. Carmilla herself is in ignorance of any proposed date and has expressed anxiety. I fear that if her Aunt does not arrive soon the girl will begin to fret, or worse I hardly dare think what should happen if she were to succumb to the strange illness that seems to afflict Emma. But to return once again to our most paramount worry, Emma has troubled nights and she looks so pale during the day. Perhaps my nervousness is not unfounded for, as you are aware, a number of village girls have fallen to the unknown malady that is spreading through the local community. There have been deaths in the village lately, the Woodcutter's daughter was buried only yesterday, and although I do not wish an ill portend, Emma might need to see the Doctor. As the village is a good five kilometres away our slight isolation may be all that is protecting us from infection. In your absence I have taken the precaution…"

The Governess paused and looked up. She considered that her position in Mr. Morton's absence could only be strengthened if she were to make the correct decision. But what was the correct decision? Calling in the Doctor had been Morton's own suggestion, but Mademoiselle felt that Emma, like many young girls, was attention seeking. Perhaps it was not a tonic that was called for here but rather a need for Emma to emerge from her deepening hysterias. With a wry and strangely cynical look that made a twist of her lips, Mademoiselle had thus determined that the time had come for Emma Morton to grow up. Admittedly the girl exasperated her, but that was no wonder when the girl was so vapid as to be annoying. Her dreamy boredom marked Emma's countenance so that it was so without character. She seemed so bland, and she had also let her mind drift into apathy. Apathy was not an attitude that Mademoiselle would have wanted any young woman to adopt. If Emma Morton even dreamed of catching a husband then perhaps it was time for her to take her role as a woman seriously, and learn her languages, her needlepoint and her music. It would do her life no good to wallow in the past and mourn forever, there had to be a point where common sense prevailed. The Governess shook her head. Her thoughts of course were for a practical world, but here in Stiria that world was far, far away. And being far away now found her having to decide what was best for a woman who was not that much younger than herself. Perhaps that was the true crux of the matter, that Emma Morton represented the maidenhood that Mademoiselle Perrodon had yearned for, but through life's turns and changes, had been denied. Despite this unpleasant fact of inner realisation, Mademoiselle decided it was best to shelve such thoughts away into a secret compartment in her mind. It was all but an ugly bafflement that made the Governess wonder why on earth fate had chosen for her the education of young ladies instead of a diamond tiara. Mademoiselle Perrodon's nib poised in mid air and she was about to begin her next sentence when a terrible scream issued forth from Emma's room and resounded through the house. The Governess dropped her quill abruptly, a splotch of black ink spattering over her writing paper, and she swiftly picked it up and placed in back in its well. Catching up her shawl she ran to Emma's room. As the door burst inward Mademoiselle could see very little, for the lamp was low and the moon had disappeared behind a phalanx of purple cloud. For one imaginary instant, a moment that was but a flicker of grey shadow, she thought she caught the shape of a great cat disappearing into the darkness under Emma's bed. As her mouth formed an expression of surprise she almost tripped in her step, blinked, but there was nothing there. Now Emma's overactive imagination was beginning to play tricks in her own head, and that was not good. The Governess shook herself into tenuity, there was no room for phantasm and nightmares in her practical world, and she looked to the distraught girl in her bed. Emma continued to scream in her distress, backing into her pillows as if trying to evade some entity that was not visible, a spectre that only she could see.

"Emma!" Mademoiselle called as she ran up to the bed, turning up the lamp so that the room swelled with even bigger shadows.

"Mademoiselle!" Emma cried out, recognising the Governess in the horror of her delirium. "It was there!" The girl pointed to the bottom of the bed but there was no monster to be seen scurrying under the tumult of oyster coloured linen. Beholding Mademoiselle's scepticism Emma responded in desperation. "It bit me!" she insisted, and pulled down her nightdress. Her breast still stung from the infliction and there were two punctures, red and livid as if sharp objects had been driven into Emma's skin. It pained and burned and no one would believe her about the cat. "Look!"

Mademoiselle had to believe her now, for here was the proof. The Governess returned a look of shock once she had glimpsed the wounds. Their edges were raw, as if something had drawn upon them, and there the blood was beginning to coagulate and to scab about the rims. A thin stream of crimson had trickled over the creamy globe of Emma's breast and pooled in a stain at her bodice. A couple of vermillion flecks dotted the sheet. Mademoiselle could hardly believe the truth of it, and yet part of her so wanted Emma to be at fault in her derangement. Was it at all possible that Emma might have gone to the extremes of mutilating herself? It was a much more likely explanation, distasteful as it was for the Governess to contemplate, than a great feral cat that visited in dreams. Emma seemed to be descending into that obsessive and dark place that had caught her mother, and Mademoiselle was somewhat afraid of the decisions she might be forced to make, for Emma's sake. And just as Mademoiselle Perrodon grasped the horror of her own situation, gasping and with her eyes locked on those two red wounds, both she and Emma were startled by a voice that came from behind them and both flinched in terror and looked to the door.

"It was my fault," said Carmilla. "It was a brooch I gave her. I told her to be careful." Carmilla appeared suddenly in the doorway and entered, languid in her movements, shimmering in the lamplight, her lovely body a wave of satin curves beneath the sheer fabric of her nightdress. The rosy buds of her nipples were plainly visible under the sheer fabric and so was the dark triangle that crowned her pubis. She glided across the room like a gentle wave glides in to shore and Mademoiselle's eyes were full of the young woman's beauty. The girl stepped up to stand before the Governess, and she was very close, so very, very close that their bodies almost touched. A ripple of fever tingled in Mademoiselle's skin and Carmilla arched her eyebrows, as if knowing the moment; and the ghost of acknowledgement dimpled the corners of her carmine lips.

"No, no!" Emma protested, looking from her friend to her Governess and whimpering. "It was the cat!"

Carmilla stepped around the tutor and her nightdress, in a swish of silk, brushed against the woman's hips. Mademoiselle suppressed a little gasp and her form quaked. She pulled her shawl up about her shoulders as if she was cold, but indeed it was fervour that was coursing through every fibre of her flesh. The Governess wanted to step back, to step away but something held her rooted to the spot. Watching Carmilla as one who is hypnotized watches, she saw the beautiful girl reach out her slender arm and gently stroke Emma's cheek.

"Go to sleep," she told her pale young friend. "Everything is all right now." And Carmilla reassured Emma with her touch and leant forward and kissed her tenderly. "Go to sleep," she repeated, and Emma closed her big doe eyes, and with a submissive sigh held in the terrified pounding of her heart. With Carmilla here the nightmare would not come again, for Carmilla was comfort and in her assurance there was strength. Carmilla pulled up the covers and folded them over Emma's breast, hiding the twin scars and the trickle of blood. Then she stood tall and looked down. There was no expression in Carmilla's face, not a line, not a shadow, only her crystalline blue eyes sparkled like frozen stars.

Carmilla turned to Mademoiselle Perrodon.

"I have one too," she said, and she held up a brooch of apatite and green garnet set in gold. The jewelled fastener glinted a cold fire in the lamplight. "Do you see how sharp the pins are?" The girl ran the tips of her fingers over the sharp little prongs.

"Oh, yes," Mademoiselle returned, marvelling at the blazing stones, marvelling at her own heated desires. She felt that she must get away for the atmosphere had become quite cloying, and she remembered that evening some night's past when Carmilla had kissed her cheek outside of Emma's room. She had been riveted then, nailed to the spot just as she was now. The only movement she could make was to gently nod her head and Carmilla smiled.

"Let me give it to you," she said, holding up the jewel. Its facetted surface blazed like dying suns and Carmilla presented it to the Governess.

"Oh, no, please," the woman protested, shaking her head in the negative, "I couldn't."

Yet in her refusal was submission, and Carmilla pressed her advantage and quietly insisted. "Please, I want you to have it."

Before Mademoiselle Perrodon could voice another protestation, Carmilla pinned the brooch in the middle of the valley of the Governess's bodice, fastening the shawl with its prickly little fangs, the tips grazing her fevered skin underneath the material. And then both of her hands inched slowly, inexorably over the Governess's bosom, her fingers fluttering as gossamer wings might flutter, lightly touching, lingering, pressing. Mademoiselle Perrodon felt her cheeks go rosy and she could only watch those fingers as they touched and softly caressed, inched downward in languid slow motion. In a flash of heat the woman's nipples became erect and the urge to clasp Carmilla's hand and hold it firm upon her breast was born of such intensity as to cause Mademoiselle a visible frisson. Carmilla only smiled deeper, and as she smiled her hands left Mademoiselle's bosom and passed over her arm and below, traversing her belly and her hips, trailing fire over the thin, diaphanous material of the woman's chemise. And Mademoiselle gasped. As she gasped she looked up and met Carmilla's eyes. Mademoiselle understood the girl's look, understood the nature of the unspoken invitation and her response was something that she could not repress. Nor did she wish to.

Carmilla broke the lock of their gaze and glanced across her shoulder toward the bed. Emma had settled now and appeared to have fallen into sleep.

"She'll be quiet now," Carmilla told the Governess, and she stepped lithely around the older woman and slid toward the bedroom door. Mademoiselle Perrodon followed the younger girl with her eyes and she saw a niveous taper of white silk that drifted as if in air, drifted to the door and passed through. The Governess followed and Carmilla closed the door and then, after a moment in which Mademoiselle's bosom rose and fell so rapidly that she felt her heart must burst; she followed Carmilla to the girl's own bedroom door. That door stood open and Carmilla paused in its frame, hovering, extending her offer to the Governess with a look that bid the other woman come forth. The woman did so, slowly, hesitantly, breathing deeply, excited. Once both women were inside Carmilla's lamp lit room the beautiful stranger locked the door and crossed to the open window. A light breeze danced in the curtains. For one brief moment she glanced out beyond the lace and into the night. Far up in the vault empyrean was a great silver moon and thin veils of cloud drifted above the tree line, black on indigo blue. Above the clouds there glimmered a sprinkling of stars. A rider on horseback waited sentinel in the shadows in the trees, motionless and all over black save for the two points of flame that were his eyes. And then Carmilla turned away and glanced back to face the Governess and her lips glistened ruby red in the moonlight, and she spoke.

"Turn down the lamp," said Carmilla, confidant in her command and uttering no further crippled conversation or innocuous triviality.

Mademoiselle Perrodon obeyed and the light dimmed into murky shadows. Within her flesh she knew now something that had awakened, something that had been for so long sleeping in the Underworld, something that yearned for the warmth of this other woman. She understood something else at this moment too, the truth as to why she had never married, the truth that her desires were for the silken skin of female lovers and not for the coarse flesh of men. Here then was the moment of truth. Carmilla began to undo the silken buttons of her nightdress. When they were all undone she slipped the garment down her torso and over her hips and it pooled in the pewter moonlight at her feet. Her naked breasts stood high, their centres the closed buds of roses tinged erubescent against the creamy skin. That skin seemed to glow in the dark as if the girl were sculpted from a single block of pure white marble. Carmilla did not step from her gown but remained before the window, a silhouette in the frame, darkly visible to the night, her form etched in a silver halo cast in the light of the moon. With a slight movement of her hand she invited Mademoiselle Perrodon to come to her. Breathless the Governess gazed upon the girl's beauty, looked with thirst upon those breasts and those hips, upon the tangle of fine down at her thighs, at the radiance that spilled from her core. The Governess came forth and stood before the younger beauty. Carmilla reached out and caressed the woman's face and then unpinned the brooch from her bosom. The Governess's shawl drifted to the carpet. The girl leant closer and her lips alighted upon Mademoiselle's lips and she kissed her, using her tongue to explore Mademoiselle's mouth. The Governess shuddered and returned the kiss fervidly, aflame with a new and unquenchable passion that would not be denied. Carmilla led her new conquest towards the bed and the dark shadows of the room engulfed them, swallowed the two women whole. The two shapes became as one, melded at the lips, at the stroke of the hand, as bosom coerced bosom, and the beautiful stranger was inside Mademoiselle's head. Her commands were gentle and yet at the same time carnal, her hands had slipped beneath Mademoiselle's nightdress and her touch was intimate and searing. A burning range of sensations stirred through Mademoiselle's blood and she quivered with an insane appetence, and Carmilla's fingers began exploring her body as it had never been explored before. Rapture then was an entity that sang a wondrous song, an all persuasive cadence in her ear, and the song flowed sweetly into Mademoiselle's mouth, into her mind, seeped into the very pores of her skin. She almost fainted, for the rush of sensuality had made her all but weak, and it had become damp and torrid between her thighs as Carmilla pressed her slim fingers against her sex. The caress obliterated everything within Mademoiselle Perrodon's flesh that was not born of longing, and the old flesh, the redundant vellum was cast off like a mantle of grey dust.

And ever watchful, outside in the park, the man in black sat tall in his saddle and he laughed silently, his fangs glinting as silver daggers glint in the shafts of cold moonlight.

Chapter 10:

A Matter For Modern Science

In which Doctor Voglreiter has cause to question his own beliefs.

Mademoiselle had spent her night in the twin embraces of both pleasure and guilt. She feared many things when the morning sunlight beamed through her bedroom window, feared irrational and shamed thoughts. How could life have brought her thus far only then to scramble her head with lust and self-reproach? These thoughts brought on a peculiarly lethargic inertia that almost threatened to confine her to her room, but she forced herself to dress and went downstairs to breakfast. The conservatory was deserted and silent, for Emma was still in bed and Carmilla never emerged until well after noon. She wanted so much to be with Carmilla, to be close to the beautiful girl, to hold her and to kiss her. But thinking such distractions only made her feel worse. Mademoiselle seated herself at the table with her back to the garden, unable to quite appreciate that the sun was shining. Everything should have been bright and fresh and pretty but it wasn't, for a pall had now somehow fallen over the Morton house and she was held captive in its void. Renton served her breakfast and bowed mockingly.

"And Miss Emma?" Renton enquired, his eyebrows arching.

"And Miss Emma, what?" returned Mademoiselle. The man seemed to be playing with her, challenging her position, waiting for her to say something counter and slip up so that he could curry favour with Mr. Morton. How she despised him. "She isn't awake yet. I will look in on her soon."

"Yes, Miss," Renton replied as the Governess reached out and took a slice of warm toast from the rack. A couple of sticky jams and a pot of honey were placed before her and Mademoiselle felt as if her stomach were going to churn. She could not make herself eat, not with him standing over her. Thankfully Renton excused himself and disappeared through the galley door. She was glad when he had gone. She shook her head and sighed. The sigh was one of only half regret, for Carmilla had been the most exciting experience of the flesh that Mademoiselle could ever have dreamed would happen in her life. Yet there was that other fly that spoiled the sweet, buzzing around objectionably, always looking and upon the point of salivating. Renton. Now there was a man who thought himself way above his station. He did not like Mademoiselle Perrodon as much as she disliked him and that had been so from the very first day she had come to this house. When she and Renton shared the same space, which happened often in this big old mansion, they generally exchanged barely suppressed sneers and disconnected strands of officious dialogue. The man was somehow able to infuriate her ire without effort and sometimes got very close to putting a match to the kindling that was her emotions. In truth Renton quite repelled her with his leering mouth and his belittling sarcasms. And he was not a very attractive man at all, quite the opposite, but what he lacked in visual beauty he compensated for with slyness. It made Mademoiselle sick to the stomach to think about the man, and the way he looked at the women in the house, his eyes hungry, his hands roaming whenever they got the chance. She had noted how Gretchin squirmed when he was about. If she could have her way Mademoiselle would have him replaced and she vowed to speak with Mr. Morton upon his return from Vienna regarding this issue. With a limp movement she broke the toast in two and tried to take a bite but thoughts of Carmilla again wormed their way into her skull. She understood all too well that her new amour would soon leave when her family returned and that her life would have to go on unfulfilled. Worse was the terror that her secret love should be discovered. Surely she would be dismissed if that were to happen. She speculated for a wild moment in which she absconded with Carmilla and that they fled to the beautiful stranger's far and distant country, wherever that may be. But the dream dissipated as rapidly as it had blossomed. If anyone should catch on, suspect her sin, then what would happen to her? Mademoiselle understood that the truth would spell her doom, for she could never find another position nor could she return to her family. The worry that Renton should be the agency by which that knowledge might occur was beyond any humiliation she could imagine. Mademoiselle did not think for a minute that Mr. Morton would advocate the employment of a tutor who loved another woman. Where would that leave his adolescent daughter if not the in the path of a deviant? The Governess could not fathom why it felt bad to feel good. As that question raised its ugly head she heard a clopping of hooves in the gravel. A horseman was arriving, and curious that it might be a messenger from Vienna Mademoiselle threw down her napkin and toast and pushed back her chair.

The Governess knew it was young Ebhardt who jumped from his mount, passing the bridle to a stable boy. She watched him from the conservatory window and her eyes narrowed.

Ebhardt was glad to dismount for he had been riding for over half an hour, through the many kilometres of forested dips and rises that separated the Spielsdorf estate from this house. Glancing about the portico he noted the strange phenomena of the withering ivy that clung about the building in brown festoons. Perhaps a particularly cold spell had caused the blight. It was certainly odd, but he dismissed the deliberation because right now he had other things to worry about. This little sojourn was consuming time that he really could not spare, for there were a hundred things to manage at the General's estate and his not controlling those things left his mind open to drift into unwanted reflection about the direction of his life. Since Laura had died Ebhardt's head had been shriven with indecision. The General had gone away to Moravia and there was still no word about his return and when he did Carl wasn't hopeful of a happy outcome to their domestic situation. The young man had become tired of the endless search for succour, both for his pocket and for his heart and he had begun to hate the moral guilt that was now chewing on his insides. Strange that he had never felt such emotions before, probably because as he reasoned his situation had never been played out in a domicile but rather in service. Yet it was still service whichever way you looked at the circumstances and he had no real power at all in any of it. That was what frustrated and vexed his life. Perhaps he had made a gigantic mistake and now it would be almost impossible to undo. The thought weighed heavy on his mind and thus he preferred to be working. At least when he was working it was almost like some parlay had been reached, one wherein neither party really wanted truth or absolution. The thoughts could be deflected and shelved and life still went on, but for how long nobody knew for sure. It had been intimated that the General's business away would bring with it bad tidings upon his return, but he had not even confided in Ebhardt the reason for his journey save that he was going to visit an old army friend, the Baron Hartog. Everybody waited for the General's reappearance in suspense. And there were other matters that worried Ebhardt too, for recently there had been a number of deaths in the province, mostly young women. Birgit, a serving girl from the neighbouring Bullheimer estate had gone missing and Conrad, the General's personal valet had been questioned about her disappearance. It would do nobody's reputation any good to have any further scandal attached to the estate and therefore Carl's own indiscretions needed to be wrapped up and buried.

Ebhardt walked swiftly up to the front door and knocked. He waited for a short while as Mademoiselle came through from the conservatory and into the main hall. She opened the door and her expression hardened. Ebhardt was another man whose company she did not wish to entertain. Oh yes, he was handsome, very handsome, but those Dionysian charms could not work their magic upon her, she saw straight through that beautiful face and resented his intrusion immediately.

"Good morning, Mr. Ebhardt."

"Good morning, Mademoiselle."

They exchanged superfluous greetings as if each were poised opposite the other upon the cracking fissure of a frozen lake. There was no reason for the tension, but it was there nonetheless. Ebhardt had no cause to dislike the Governess, for he hardly knew her, but the aura she radiated at this moment could hardly be termed friendly, and he felt her anger and her distrust. The attitude sparked his curiosity. People generally only got their back up so fast when they had something to hide. And then there was an awkward moment of silence. Ebhardt straightened up and clasped his hands. Obviously he was the party who must start the dialogue.

"Mr. Morton asked me to call in and see Miss Emma."

"When?" Mademoiselle asked, and her question was accusatory, as if he were lying. Why would Mr. Morton not trust in her good service? It was an affront to her pride.

"Why, when he left for Vienna."

"Emma is not here," countered Mademoiselle abruptly, cutting the young man's words off. "She's gone for a picnic. She'll be out all day."

"With her friend?" Ebhardt knew instinctively that the Governess was lying, but why, that was the question. He couldn't understand the reason for her obvious hostility towards him, but it was there nonetheless and she made no effort to disguise the fact.

"What friend?" she asked Ebhardt, and she was less than convincing in her vagary.

"Mr. Morton said that she had a friend staying with her."

"No," Mademoiselle half laughed as she replied, dismissing Mr. Morton's request as a capricious waste of Ebhardt's time. "Not any longer." She stressed the last words as if that was exactly what they were, the last words and that she had nothing further to say. Rudely she began to close the door.

"Oh," said Ebhardt, standing his ground. He was not going to be turned away so easily. He had ridden a long way upon a friend's request and this reception was not what he had expected. "Well, I'll call beck later, perhaps tomorrow."

"We shall be busy tomorrow," replied the Governess, and she batted her eyelids as if in insult. There was something hard about her face, a coldness that Ebhardt found a little disconcerting. She held up her hand for him to graciously kiss goodbye. "Call next week, Mr. Ebhardt."

But Ebhardt did not kiss her hand; instead he gave it a gentle squeeze and looked the woman directly in the eye. She barely even blinked, smirking as she watched him step through the entry and leave. There was no formal goodbye to finish the conversation. Outside, with a troubled mind, Ebhardt bestrode his dappled horse and gently spurred the beast into a trot. Everything in this house was wrong and out of kilter too, he felt it but didn't know what to do.

Upstairs on the gallery Carmilla hovered in the shadows. As it was early morning she kept within the shades where the sunlight did not stream through the windows. She had been observing quietly the interaction between the Governess and the young man. There was no expression on her face.

Gretchin walked up the stairs and along the gallery carrying a breakfast tray. She paused before Emma's door and knocked softly. Gretchin listened and waited but there was no reply, no invitation to enter. Concerned that Emma had been ill and might have taken a turn for the worse Gretchin opened the door and entered. She set the tray down on a stand, its porcelain cup belling against the silver milk jug and toast rack. Emma lay in her bed, breathing steadily but locked away in a fevered dream. The girl's eyes moved rapidly under their lids, her long lashes twitching. She looked so pale and grey that her skin was almost the same hue as the sheets, her blue veins standing out starkly against the white of her flesh. The sight shocked Gretchin and the serving girl ran up to the bed. She looked at the girl and saw her bosom heaving with the effort of breathing and Gretchin reached down and gingerly took hold of Emma's wrist. There was no response to her touch and the girl's arm was limp, like a doll's. How cold the young lady felt, as if the blood had ceased to flow in her veins. Her skin was clammy too and she sighed audibly and groaned aloud as she dreamed. The vision of the invalid scared the servant and she immediately went in search of help. It was Renton who met her in the corridor and at first the sight of him doubled her fear, but she put her own discomforts aside and spoke to the butler.

"Mr. Renton, it's Miss Emma, she looks so ill!"

When Renton's eyes fell upon Gretchin they ignited with a tiny spark of mischief, but that spark cooled quickly and his eyes narrowed when he saw how visibly shaken the young woman appeared to be. He pushed her gently aside, and this time thankfully his fingers did not linger on her body, but rather he seemed bent on a strange concentration, and knocked at Emma's door. As it was with Gretchin, there came no reply to his summons. Renton knocked again. The butler and the maid glanced at each other briefly, Gretchin's eyes wide with anticipation, and then Renton opened the door. He walked silently up to Emma's bed and gazed upon the sick girl.

"Does Mademoiselle Perrodon know about this?" he questioned Gretchin.

"I don't know, sir," Gretchin replied, hovering in the background. "I suppose so." Another irrational fear had suddenly taken hold in her head and that was the thought of contagion. What if Miss Emma was now succumbing to the dreadful malady that was spreading in the vicinity? A number of girls had already died. The thought struck a chord of terror into Gretchin, for did that spell doom for anyone who touched her? Gretchin felt a terrible thrill shudder all the way down her spine. Renton turned and looked at her. "She asked me to fetch her up a tray," Gretchin stammered and she couldn't stop trembling.

"Very well, Gretchin," Renton said, and she thought that he would dismiss her immediately but he did not. Instead he walked straight by her and strutted down the corridor and around the gallery and went downstairs. Now that he was gone Gretchin felt her anxiety begin to level out and she took a deep breath. Miss Emma needed tending and that was the first priority. Despite the rumour and gossip and the stories of plague and illness that were abounding in the Duchy, Gretchin had her duty to see done. As for what might come, well, Renton could deal with the rest of all that.

With Ebhardt departed Mademoiselle had returned to the breakfast table but had proceeded no further in eating, but rather she had shredded a piece of cold toast into bits and then tore those bits into smaller pieces. Her private agonies whirled inside her head. It was Renton who interrupted them.

"Excuse me, Mademoiselle."

She looked up and dropped the last piece of toast onto the pile of crumbs on her plate and looked up sharply. "Yes, Renton, what is it?"

"It's Miss Emma, if I may be so bold…" said Renton, his voice measured but still authoritative, as if testing and nudging a response from the woman. She knew that no matter what she should say he would challenge her anyway. That was just who he was, a dreadful, rude and ugly man. "I think she should see the Doctor."

As he spoke those words the image of Carmilla blossomed magically in the doorway at his back. She was dressed in her vivid middle sky blue gown and her hair was a fall of auburn syrup that cascaded over her bare ivory shoulders. She wore her ruby and it sparkled, nestled in her between her breasts. She held her hands clasped together at her front and she did not speak. Mademoiselle Perrodon was not in the mood to be challenged by Renton and given her present emotional imbalance she tried to avoid his face by looking away. But it was no use, he was being insistent, and knowing him she knew that the tension between them would only escalate if she tried to avoid him. She was about to reply, the words of rebuttal upon her lips when she looked beyond his bulk and saw the beautiful houseguest standing behind him. Their eyes met. Carmilla's face remained blank, unreadable; her eyes did not even blink. There was something cool and yet dangerous about the vision of her that inspired awe. A silent communication was passing from the girl through the ether and sparking in the Governess's head. The stress and the angst suddenly melted from Mademoiselle Perrodon's features. For the shortest moment the world fell silent, a moment wherein not even the twittering of birds in the gardens could be heard, and there was only Carmilla's face, and the imaginary half-heard whisper of her cadent voice.

"I shall send for the Doctor, Renton, should I think it necessary," she replied dismissively.

Renton looked incredulous and he had the vaguest impression that Mademoiselle wasn't even really speaking, that her lips weren't moving but rather that her mouth was that of a puppet, that her voice was being manipulated. His brow creased and his lips turned up in a sneer, ready to bite back, but he thought better of such action and gave a slight nod of his head.

"Very well, Mademoiselle," he replied coolly, but he wasn't about to be put out so easily. He bowed and turned and was startled to see Carmilla positioned directly at his back. She smiled warmly at him and he found that all he could manage was another lame pod. How long had she been standing there? Quickly the butler regained his composure and without casting another glance back Renton walked from the room.

Carmilla watched him go, and when he was gone she sat down beside Mademoiselle Perrodon at the breakfast table. A fine china teacup and saucer had slipped to the edge of the table and Carmilla gently pushed them toward the centre again. As she did this the Governess clasped her hand.

"Carmilla," the woman whispered, an imploring and furtive look alight in her eyes.

Carmilla regarded her with an almost cold and haughty glare and did not speak. Mademoiselle let go of the girl's wrist and her heart crushed as if by the weight of an uncompromising gravity she felt a star collapse within her heart.

Liese was voluptuous and if she possessed superior charms then they were her bosoms. They were large and firm and Renton gazed at them in amazement. At this very moment Renton wanted nothing more than to be under her petticoats with his face between those breasts. He would have kissed them and stroked them and had he been able to, he would have squeezed them about his member. The thought made him go hard in his breeches. As Liese was not a girl predisposed to embarrassment, when he could steal a kiss he would and when his hands were free they were hot upon her body. This did not bother the wench too much, in a tavern you expected men to misbehave, and Mr. Renton was no exception to the rule. But if he wanted anything better than a quick squeeze he'd have to pay, and so far tonight he had only paid for a stein of beer. Kurt, the Landlord smiled knowingly at Renton.

"Ah! Beautiful!" Renton remarked loudly, draining his beer and reaching for a refilled mug. The tavern wench replenished his drink. "But not as beautiful as you, my love!" Renton slapped and held Liese's bottom and she laughed aloud but brushed his fingers away with her free hand. Some farmers were gathered about a table and they were smoking and playing at cards. One fellow stood by the fire and played his accordion. Liese skipped away with a tray and replaced their empty steins with fresh brimming ales. Renton was waiting her return. He reached for a filled stein.

"You've had more than enough tonight," she told him, evading his clutch. The air was thick with blue smoke and the cheer was getting more raucous.

"She's right, you know," said Renton reflectively to the innkeeper, although the beer he had imbibed was now beginning to blur some of his better judgments. "It wouldn't do for a man in my position to be caught drunk and disorderly."

Leaning towards Renton the Landlord gave him a sly wink. "Oh, that's all right Mr. Renton. While your master is away…"

Renton took another swift gulp of his drink and sighed. "That's just the point, Kurt," he told the Landlord. "That's just the point."

"And what is the point when you're not having a good time?" asked Kurt, pressing another refill upon the butler.

"I've been left in a position of responsibility," Renton piped, nodding his head as he said the words, as if to reaffirm in his own mind that he was totally in charge of Morton's estate in the man's absence. This thought brought Mademoiselle Perrodon into his head and he scoffed aloud. That woman only _thought_ that she was in charge. Well, he'd show her. She was so repressed and uptight that Renton suspected that she had never once lain with man. The Governess didn't ring any bells for him either, although at a push he might have given her a quick round under the covers, in the dark. And then he thought of Miss Emma.

"Miss Emma's very ill," he confided to the Landlord, and Kurt pressed even closer, his eyes narrowing into slits, his brow creasing with genuine concern.

"Oh, and what is the nature of the illness, Mr. Renton?"

A sickness had been visited upon the province of late and the news that the landholder's daughter might be afflicted was indeed a worry.

"How would I know?" snapped Renton, irritated because he felt his happy feelings rapidly evaporating. And then by way of small apology he added, "I'm not the Doctor."

But then the Doctor had not been able to come because Mademoiselle had not thought him needed.

"But why won't that blasted Governess let me send for him?"

The Landlord only stared open mouthed, failing to comprehend that the question was not actually directed at him. Renton could see Mademoiselle Perrodon in his mind's eye, see her sitting at the breakfast table all prim and smug and telling him _"I shall send for the Doctor, Renton, should I think it necessary." _Yet given how agitated she had appeared and how she detested him, Renton began to suspect that there was something deeper flowing under the surface of this situation, something ugly. He recalled Laura Spielsdorf's recent death and its awful circumstantial similarity to the illness infecting the countryside. There had been wild talk about, circulating gossip that laid the blame on forces that were legendary in these parts. Someone had remarked that for forty years _'they'_ had lain quiet but now _'they'_ had returned. Someone had uttered the word vampire. Renton had recalled Emma's pale and bloodless appearance. The thought of it sent a shiver along his spine. Who were 'they'? Ghosts? It was ridiculous. But that Governess, she was indeed strange and wilful and nasty and he spoke aloud before he could rein in his mouth. "Acting like a bloody vampire, that one!"

The accordion player stopped playing his music abruptly, all the chatter in the tavern fell completely silent and hearts and spades and royal courts fanned across the table in a sudden scatter. Liese gasped and almost dropped her tray. Everyone in the tavern was staring at Renton.

"It was only a joke," he apologised, but nobody responded.

"Not around here it isn't, Mr. Renton." The Landlord stepped up to stand beside the butler, his countenance was serious. "There's been three deaths 'round here lately, none of them by natural causes. Just a scream in the night and then found there, pale as death."

"Pale as death?" Renton repeated in a whisper, putting down his stein. The pathetic image of Emma Morton lying upon her convalescent bower, white of skin and laboured of breath spun before his eyes. This vision was followed again by one of the sneering Governess and in that flash the joys of intoxication were vanquished and Renton returned abruptly to sobriety.

"The blood drained from them," Kurt continued, his tone darker and his manner almost threatening.

"My God!" ejaculated Renton, leaping from his seat, and he threw down a handful of coins upon the counter, snatching up his cloak from where it hung on a peg by the door.

"Goodnight, Mr. Renton," said Kurt, his face very still save for a little quiver that trembled at his lips.

About him no one stirred and the tavern remained silent even after Renton had passed through its door and back into the misty night that had earlier brought him.

Outside in the street Renton swept up his cloak and tied it off at his neck, the ground mist was rising, making the narrow way a river of undulating white under the light of the moon. He shivered, for it was getting chilly, and he peered into the dark like one seeking a beacon. At the end of the street where the road met the forest he glanced up and saw the grey outline of the ruined castle on the hill, and then, out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a rider on a black horse pass into the shadows. The vision was very fleeting and it might just have been his imagination for when he blinked there was nothing there. Yet he could not be certain. Another thing he could not be certain about was that Governess. She had her own agendas and he did not understand her, he knew that much. Renton did not like her either, but her behaviour had become very peculiar, and quite suddenly too. And then there was Miss Emma. She looked so ill and the Governess had decreed that the Doctor should not be called. Renton paused for a moment to do up the gleaming brass buttons of his cloak and then he turned about and headed down the street. The only sounds that accompanied him were the soft splash of the water bubbling from the cistern and the hoot of an owl somewhere off in the dark. The tavern had fallen silent but no one had left it yet. When he arrived at a door beneath a rickety eave, he reached out and grasped the lion's head knocker, and rapped upon it. There was no immediate response. Renton waited silently for a short moment before he knocked again. Voglreiter opened his door and peered out. Although he was dressed in his nightclothes and cap he had not been asleep, there had been too much noise from the tavern for that. He looked at Renton with a twinkle in his eye and instinctively he knew that trouble was afoot.

"Doctor," Renton addressed Voglreiter, and the Doctor responded with a barely retrained eagerness.

Through Emma's bedroom window could be seen a view to the mountains. They were tall and steel grey against the panoply of the purple night. Their peaks glowed in the light of the full moon. That light glimmered in through the lace and cast a wan sheen upon Emma's drawn features. Her cheeks had sunken, and her eyes were blackly rimmed; she looked gaunt, pale, and sickly. There were flowers in a vase under the window, white snowdrops that were meant to cheer her up, but as the door opened, they sagged and went limp on their stems. Emma's eyes fluttered open. She had been dreaming of her dead friend Laura. Laura had been whispering something in her ear, a name that she did not recognise, a strange name, Marcilla... and it sounded so close to Carmilla...

Emma tried to focus her eyes but her vision was blurry and the world seemed to spin a little. It made her sick. There was someone standing in the doorway, a shadow with long hair and lovely curves. Was it a ghost or death arrived to whisk her away to be with her mother? No, it was Carmilla, come to tend her, come to make her feel happy. The lovely stranger was dressed in white and she shone like a burnished star, the jewel at her bosom a tongue of fire ablaze upon her alabaster skin. As Carmilla glided to the bed she became less ethereal and more reality, solid, and Emma's vision cleared, and the beautiful guest sat down on the bedside.

"Carmilla?" Emma said weakly, trying to smile but it was no good. There was no use pretending.

Carmilla reached out and stroked Emma's cheek with a slow and tender caress. She held her close and there was a tear in her eye. Emma felt cold but so did Carmilla.

"What is it, my darling," Carmilla said lowly, continuing to hold her friend, and trembling just as much as Emma.

"Carmilla, I'm dying."

"Yes," the girl replied, and it was the truth. Love was the killer and its final phases were inevitable. Carmilla had lived for three centuries and had seen love expire so many times that she was now weary of it all. There was nothing that was new to Carmilla, nothing on the earth that was unfamiliar. There was no experience that anyone could ever have that she had not already cultivated save for true love, and true love was always denied her. That was the awful thing and it set her apart, made her other. She might taste of it, sip at its font, but she must never count it as her own. Another tear spilled down her cheek. Yes, this lovely doll, her heart's amour, Emma, was destined for the worm. There was only one way to cheat the maggot, but that meant Emma had to pass through the veil of death and be reborn as she, Carmilla had been reborn, so many centuries ago. Yet to do so, to perform that blasphemy was forbidden. Only the elite had that power, her father's power, and he would never advocate such a thing. Carmilla knew her father was outside, watching in the shadows, and he not only stood guard but he spied too. He watched her seduce and watched her feed and he enjoyed the spectacle of seduction and death. He was unto a puppet master who controlled every action, every movement, governed her parasitic existence, and robbed her of any free will she might ever have had. Loss carved a cold stele in Carmilla's heart, and on that stone only frost accumulated. Her heart was buried under the grey dust of eons past and her emotions drowned in the blood of countless victims. As the centuries had dissolved into the ether and the world altered and rearranged about her, so did Carmilla's despair grow stronger. And she realised in her heart's agony that despite her desire to be free, she would _never_ be free.

"Will I live...until father comes home?" Emma asked brokenly.

Carmilla half smiled through her grief. She wanted to tell Emma that Mr. Morton was as ruthless as all other men were ruthless. He pretended a guise that bought him satisfaction in the world at the cost of other people's lives, at the cost of innocents. She knew this truth because she knew what the world really was. Over all these years spent in darkness she had learned how to read people very well. She had quickly suspected General Spielsdorf's secret and that Ebhardt would only bring Emma sorrow should she let him woo her. Men lived in a different world to women, one wherein they had all of the say. No woman enjoyed the same rights as a man and being a woman provoked the notion of stupidity, but she had survived the world of men so far even unto death and she was far from stupid. Yet even in that knowledge what position did she truly occupy? She always did her father's bidding nonetheless. However, was she, Carmilla, any different to any man in that respect, any different to the base and the beastly in that she loved and then killed? She seemed to stalk like a predator and ravish what she pleased, but she was tortured within and the pain of knowing this paradox benumbed a part of her that she thought could not exist within her undead flesh.

"Perhaps," was all that Carmilla could say, and she leant forward and kissed her love on the forehead.

Emma whimpered, afraid that the shadows would claim her before her life had even really begun.

"Carmilla," Emma whispered hoarsely, her throat running dry, "there's something I must tell you."

"Shh," her friend replied, soothing, smiling benevolently. "You do not need to tell me, for I already know."

"The book..." stammered Emma and she weakly pointed to her dressing table, a tear trickling down her cheek. "I know it was wrong of me to read it... to hide it, but..."

"No," Carmilla told her, "everything is all right. We all have secrets, some worse than others. Your secret is no sin at all. What person alive, or indeed even in death, would not pine for romance?"

Confused and in contrition Emma began to sob again. "What do you mean, Carmilla? I don't understand."

Carmilla kissed her companion lightly upon the lips. "Even the dead can love," she whispered as she held Emma tightly.

Emma shuddered and wept and could think of nothing but her dead friend Laura and how just like her, only a coffin awaited her flesh. There could never be a handsome young man to caress and to love and adore her till time should cease. Painfully she did not feel for Carmilla what the girl felt for her. With salty lips Carmilla kissed her again and again, sealing off Emma's weeping and stroking her cheek.

Filtering through the dark outside, Carmilla heard the clop of horse hooves in the drive and she knew whom it was who had arrived, and it was not the man in black.

Voglreiter rode up the carriageway, his cloak flapping in the wind. There were yellow lights in the windows to guide his way in the dark and when he came under the ivy and the portico, he slid from his horse and ran up to the door. After knocking once Renton opened it and ushered the Doctor inside.

"Good evening," said Voglreiter to the butler and the Physician removed his hat and entered. Renton closed the entry upon the Doctor's back.

"Good evening, Doctor," Renton replied.

"There's a sharp wind tonight, Renton," the Doctor remarked casually, and Renton stepped forward and took the Doctor's travelling cloak. As the Doctor removed and passed Renton his tall black hat, Mademoiselle Perrodon opened the door that led to the Conservatory.

"Doctor?" She was very surprised at the man's late visit to the house. She had not requested his services and a stab of resentment pricked at her vain pride. She cast an accusatory glance at Renton.

"Mademoiselle Perrodon," the Doctor returned courteously, nodding slightly and giving a friendly smile.

On the gallery upstairs Carmilla stood very still, looking down. No one could see her, but she was listening to them as they spoke. She saw Voglreiter clearly and her gaze burned with his image, burned with a cold and smouldering flame.

"I'm afraid Mr. Morton is away," Mademoiselle told the Doctor, her voice quite flat, attempting to be devoid of expression.

"Yes, I know. I had a message from him. He asked me to look in on Miss Emma." Voglreiter smiled even more broadly but Mademoiselle knew he was lying. This whole charade was an act. Were these men so very pompous that they thought they could deceive her with a silly smile and a fatuous lie?

The Governess clearly did not believe the man. She straightened her back and set her lips in a hard line readying herself to ask him to leave. That he was handsome and enthralling went by the wayside, those superficialities were not about to work on her. No twinkling pale sapphires and congenial bedside charms were going to win him over the post, and Doctor Voglreiter, as far as Mademoiselle was concerned was not going to be allowed to disturb the girl upstairs. The Doctor caught her unspoken challenge as if it was a tossed ball, and an even greater smile spread his lips wider. He did not reply another word, but instead stroked his bristly white moustache as he strutted past the woman and headed upstairs to Emma Morton's room. Mademoiselle felt the breath catch in her throat and her body quaked in an angry shiver. Men were always so impudent, and this one especially. As the anger shone from her eyes she turned to the butler Renton, still standing by the door and holding the Doctor's cloak and hat.

"Was this you, Renton?" Mademoiselle accused.

"I, Mademoiselle?" Renton replied indignantly, arching his eyebrows and smirking.

She dismissed him with a scoff of disbelief, and picking up her skirts she ran to catch the Doctor, half way in his ascent to the upper floor.

"She has not been well," Mademoiselle stammered, "but I'm sure it is nothing that need trouble you." At any cost, she needed to get rid of him. An indefinable urge was making fire in her veins, a voice that she could barely understand whispering into her ear that this man had to go.

The two made the gallery as Voglreiter removed his riding gloves and stuffed them in a trouser pocket. "I'm sure I'll be able to put his mind at rest then." The Doctor did not even look at the Governess as he spoke and this made her ire even more intense. Arriving at Emma's door he knocked, but the knock was simply cursory for he did not wait for reply or invitation, but rather opened the door immediately and strutted within. The room was swimming with shadows and Voglreiter blinked as his eyes adjusted. He moved quickly to the bedside and turned up the lamp. The light came up brightly and revealed the pale and sick girl floating prostrate within her tide of white linen. Voglreiter placed his bag at the foot of the bed and picked up Emma's limp and doll-like hand, his fingers gently closing about the thin wrist. He waited and counted as the pulse throbbed weakly. And the girl was so cold. From the corner of his eye he saw Mademoiselle as she hovered by the door, she was wringing her hands in agitated expectation not sure if she should enter, but she remained silent. He moved so that his frame obscured her vision and he replaced Emma's arm at length along her body, raised his fingers to the lacy hem of her bodice, and pulled the material back to expose her breast. Voglreiter leaned over very close so that his nose almost touched the pale girl's skin. His magnifying lens pooled in a fold in the quilt, dangling on its chain, glinting in the lamp light. He beheld then the twin scars, red and scabby, on Emma's breast. There was a livid bruise about the edges of the punctures as if a mouth had suckled there, and the Doctor recalled with a thrill of horror the very same cicatrices that had branded Laura Spielsdorf's flesh. Perhaps he had been dismissive when that young woman had fallen ill but he would be vigilant this time. He wondered what vile evil were afoot, at what the Devil had sent to vex their lives. This caused a contradiction in his mind, for Erich being a man of science had always refuted the world of the supernatural, and he involuntarily genuflected above his patient. Why he did this he was unsure for he didn't even believe in God, and the reflex to cross himself and utter, if only in a whisper the name of Christ might have been just that, instinct in the face of the unknown. Yet the whole act of doing so pitched him teetering into that realm he so flippantly termed hysterical, that dominion wherein lived irrational women, and menstrual teenage girls. In Erich's worldview, religion and Christian faith meant little more than the many myths of any ancient and bygone civilization. Those were stories that were not to be taken seriously. None of that had a proper grounding in science, and he thought that realistically there had to be an explanation in such discipline for everything that made up the planet. Voglreiter had once seemed confidant in that premise, but this absurd notion that confronted him now, his making the sign of the cross was like unto one of those strange anomalies that he sometimes glimpsed through the lens of his microscope. He felt slightly embarrassed and foolish and could not understand his sudden trust in faith. But science also demanded an open mind and religion blindly accepted the impossible. Still, contrarily, if he could save Miss Emma's life by the strangest of means, then so be it. Since the death of Laura Spielsdorf, and given the clime of illness and mortality in the vicinity lately, Voglreiter had been exploring the problem to great lengths, secretly digging up old tomes and ransacking the notes of cases that he had found too difficult to explain. Any information that might offer up a glimmer of hope was information worth evaluating. For Voglreiter had to admit that the landscape of medicine often built its foundations and structures around the netherworld called the supernatural. He had dug up some interesting tracts, of the occult and the antiquated, of the myth intertwined with the factual, and among them was Calmet's _'A Dissertation upon Apparitions'_. Therein he had explored the strangest phenomena, and read with interest the idea of the revenant, the corpse returned from the grave. Village gossip swore that such things were so. There had been other older and wilder texts like the _'Mercure Galant'_ and the _'De Masticatione Mortuorum in Tumulis'_ that he had also found, scripts that supported what should have been considered barbarous ignorance and villainous enormities. There was one short dissertation that he had uncovered, a tract that had been published forty years earlier, written by a young Moravian nobleman. It might have read as madness had it not been for the terrible similarities that haunted this province. And from it Voglreiter had learned one horrible and irrefutable fact, and the fact would not let go of his mind. Its truth was spawned of the metaphysical world and once he realised its portent he knew within his heart that he could not ignore the suggestion that these victims, the ones that died slowly, they were being willed to their graves by an interminable longing that a killing love dictated. This accounted for the victim's pining and for the lingering consumption, but above all it was the location on the body where the telltale marks appeared, on the breast that spoke a thousand words about the perpetrator's cravings and about the power with which he may have to deal. Here he was convinced that he was excogitating upon an intelligence that was perhaps older than time, and no doubt parasitic, and it could not break its hold upon its victim until the victim was dead… or worse.

Mademoiselle Perrodon came forward, slowly, gingerly. She looked at the supine girl in the bed and then licked her lips. Voglreiter made a mental note of this action.

"Is she… dead?"

"Not yet, thank heavens!" the Doctor rebuffed sternly, and the woman shrunk back a step.

A knock sounded upon the door behind her back and she spun about to see Renton. The butler was holding a large vase that was overflowing with greenery, and the greenery was tipped with little white and purple flowers. He entered the room without invitation.

"What the Devil have you got there?" the Doctor exclaimed, looking to the flowers and arching his eyebrows. Mademoiselle followed his gaze and gave a hiss of disapproval.

"Garlic flowers, Sir," replied Renton, pausing beside Mademoiselle, who stepped back and away towards retreat. "They have an antiseptic smell."

The Governess's face twisted up in fury.

"Have you been listening to village gossip?" Voglreiter asked incredulously, hoping to sound sincere in his disbelief. Inside his head he felt a little hypocritical, because had not he too been listening to village gossip? He purported scepticism and doubted the veracity of apotropaics. They had their place in legend and myth but not in progressive disciplines, and yet Voglreiter now found himself ascribing to, and even giving in to superstition.

"No, Sir," Renton lied, keeping his expression blank. He knew that at any moment Mademoiselle Perrodon might erupt into a tirade in front of the Doctor.

"Illness," the Doctor emphasised, "is a matter for modern science. Not witchcraft!" Upon this point the Doctor now wavered, for how could he be so sure anymore?

"Yes, Sir," was all that Renton could reply, and accept that perhaps he had overstepped the line as to how far his authority actually stretched.

"Take those flowers away at once!" Mademoiselle demanded, interrupting the butler and shaking physically in her passion.

"Mademoiselle," countered Voglreiter, "this is my patient! Kindly do not interfere."

Confusion and vehemence both struggled in Mademoiselle's countenance. She stared at the Doctor and was upon the point of challenging him but thought better of it and abruptly left the room. She was not finished with this insurrection just yet and she knew who was responsible, Renton, and he would pay dearly.

As she stormed away the Doctor approached Renton and stood beside him, watching the woman stride down the corridor. A wry smile was sneaking across his lips. "Quite healthy… I suppose…" He met the butler's eye and nodded. "You can get some more, Renton."

"Yes, Sir."

Renton bowed slightly and walked away, leaving the bedroom door open as he passed through and went down the staircase. At the end of the hallway Mademoiselle turned, waited, and watched. She was trembling all over as if she were cold, and her gaze was wild, her eyes blackened in wrath. Erich matched her glare, and then she spun about, flew down the stairs, and vanished from sight. When he was alone Erich closed Emma's bedroom door and stood pensively for a moment, marshalling his thoughts. The garlic flowers were of course a point of contention, but according to Culpeper they were a tuber _owned_ by 'Mars' and therefore a valuable weapon in the arsenal that he must draw up in his battle against whatever it was he faced. Part of his rationale did not want to label that force 'evil' because he did not fully believe in such things, although circumstances in this incidence were oddly running counter to his mind. Something told him to watch that Governess for she was high strung and vicious, but he must think of Emma Morton's well being for now. He had been wrong once, very recently, and he did not want to be so wrong again and live to rue the day. This time precautions were needed, and allies too, and Renton had proven very useful indeed. The properties of the garlic herb were said to be medicinal, and it could not hurt to work with that if it helped in this fight. Voglreiter crossed to Emma's dressing table and rummaged through a drawer. His fingers separated bangles of worked gold and strings of pearls and pasted tiaras. Erich closed the drawer and his fingers touched a cedar box. He opened it and the contents glimmered in the light, sparks glanced off the gems that nestled in its plush emerald velvet lining. Among the earrings he found a silver filigree chain from which depended a cross of polished tourmaline. He picked it up and examined it and the jewelled symbol's facets played blue fire and threw comet tails into the ether. The cross seemed electric to Erich's touch, as if it were a thing alive.

"Perhaps… just perhaps…" he thought to himself, and it did not necessarily prove one way or the other that he was a believer, but maybe he must trust his instincts this time, even if instinct seemed irrational. Erich moved to the bed and lifted Emma's head from her pillow. He slipped his hand beneath her strawberry blond hair, looped, and clipped the chain about the supine girl's slender throat. Emma breathed deeply and groaned but otherwise did not respond to his touch. Erich stared for a long moment at the two puncture marks in her breast, about an inch above her nipple, and then he stroked the girl's cheek and his stroke lingered upon her chin. Voglreiter smiled and continued to stare as Emma breathed shallowly, and his fingers roamed along the line of her swanlike neck and paused for a long minute upon her creamy white bosom, just above her heart.

Gretchin had been ordered to take more garlic flowers to Emma's room and on her way up from the kitchen she passed the Doctor at the bottom of the stairs. She paused and the Doctor nodded, but Gretchin flinched when she realised Renton was behind her. She moved on quickly but Renton's eyes did not follow her this time, his mind was preoccupied with other matters. He helped the Doctor into his cloak.

"Where is Mademoiselle?" Erich asked as he fixed his clasp and retrieved his riding gloves from his pocket.

"I don't know, Sir."

"Very well." Voglreiter cast his eyes upstairs and then turned back to Renton. "See that Miss Emma is not disturbed." Buckling his saddlebag Erich headed for the door. "Have one of the maids sit up with her all night. I'll be back in the morning."

"Very good," said Renton, lowering his voice and adding in a serious tone," I have sent for Mr. Morton, Sir."

"Good."

Renton opened the door and gave Voglreiter his tall hat.

"Whatever happens," Erich stressed, "keep her away from Miss Emma."

"Yes, Sir," replied the butler, and then speaking louder so that he deliberately might be heard he ushered Voglreiter through the entrance. "Good night, Doctor."

Renton closed the door and his eyes looked to the upper floor.

Gretchin had placed the garlic flowers on the dresser and on a stand under the window and now she was straightening Emma's covers. The poor girl had been dreaming and in the dream she had been writhing like a worm and groaning. The sight had made Gretchin squirm. Perhaps it was the odour of the garlic that had upset the girl's sleep. Gretchin knew that most found the plants pungency too strong, though she didn't find the perfume of the flowers at all; in fact she found the scent quite agreeable. She had just finished straightening Emma's sheets when the door opened and Mademoiselle Perrodon stood in the frame but did not come in.

"Gretchin!" she snapped and the startled maid stood bolt upright. She saw the Governess and curtsied, but Mademoiselle seemed to be shaking and her voice was cracking. She was obviously upset. "Who told you to put those there?" The woman pointed to the garlic blooms.

"Mr. Renton, Mademoiselle." The girl replied. She observed the Governess roll her eyes in disgust at the mention of the butler's name. That upstart would pay for overriding her authority.

"Take them out please."

"But Mademoiselle, he…" Gretchin began to protest, confused by the contradictory orders.

"Take them out!" And Mademoiselle was livid in her anger and slammed the door shut.

The bang made Gretchin jump, but Emma slept on, and not knowing where she stood or whom she should take orders from, Gretchin picked up the two vases once again. "Yes, Mademoiselle," she said to the silence, mocking the Governess and walking briskly toward the bedroom door.

The Governess stormed along the gallery, her face set in a fury. Renton met her half way.

Renton," she spat, "will you kindly remember that _I _am in charge of this house in Mr. Morton's absence!"

"Certainly, Mademoiselle," Renton replied derisively. This one had only come lately to this house and who was she to tell him what to do? The resentment boiled away inside his skin.

"Then why did you order those…" and Mademoiselle stuttered in her ire, "those weed to be put in Miss Emma's room?"

"Not I" replied Renton coolly, "the Doctor. I am sure that we are agreed that he is in charge of the patient."

In the middle of this heated exchange Gretchin approached timidly. She did not want to get into the argument but she knew she would be jostled into doing someone's bidding; it just depended on who possessed the dominant personality. Renton spoke calmly. "Take those back, Gretchin," he ordered, and the maid stopped still, frozen by indecision.

"Sir?" she questioned, afraid that this tense situation was only going to get worse.

For a blank moment all three people did not speak. Mademoiselle stared at the vases of garlic and her face screwed up in revulsion. "Take them away," she demanded, taking a small step back.

Gretchin still could not move, but hovered, holding the vases and struck dumb for fear of saying the wrong thing.

As if he had read her mind, Renton suddenly reached out, took one of the vases from Gretchin's hand, and passed it to the angry Governess.

"Why don't you take them away, Mademoiselle?" he said slyly and the woman flushed hotly and almost hissed, backing away from the flowers as quickly as a cat and into her bedroom, slamming the door loudly.

The butler turned to Gretchin and handed back the vase. Without speaking Gretchin curtsied and returned the flowers to Miss Emma's room. Renton smiled as he watched her go, looking at the maid's hips as they swayed slightly and feeling justifiably smug he returned downstairs.

Carmilla heard Count Karnstein as he called his command. The words were filtered through the wind and came to her ear as does a half-heard echo. He waited outside in the park, waited for her to do his bidding. Something within her wanted to refute the command, and she knew what it was. Love made her question herself, and question too the things that she had to do to survive. Love might also make her weak. She understood that if she gave in to its tender mercies only damnation could follow in its wake. But her perspectives were shifting after all these long centuries and Carmilla raised her hand to her ears. She flattened her ivory palms against her ears and tried to quiet the voice of her father, make him silent, make him go away, but it was like trying to tell the wind to cease, and she found herself growing angry. After an eternity had passed she left her casement and left her room, and slipped quietly along the gallery, stopping outside Emma's door. Something was wrong, she sensed the change; in fact she smelled the change, for it wafted through the aperture of the doorframe and it made her sick. She opened the door. As the panel swung back it revealed two vases filled with garlic flowers, one on the bedside table, and one beneath the window. The window was open and the wind ruffled the drapes, carrying the dreadful stench of the plants to Carmilla's nostrils. She looked to the girl in her sick bed, and amid the tide of sheets she saw something that gleamed and sparkled like a blue star. The jewelled cross radiated brightly, it was a spear of light that blazed from the cradle of Emma's breast and Carmilla gasped and looked away. She felt her body quake and as terrible fire rush through her flesh and closed the door quietly, her mouth set in a grimace of fury.

Voglreiter had ridden into the forest, keeping to the path, watching the shadows in the moonlight as he rode. The forest was quiet, deathly quiet save for the whispered gaggle of a stream flowing down the embankment to the left of the way. He pondered the night's events as he rode slowly through the wood. This whole business of Miss Morton's illness bore a distinct similarity to the events that had led up to the death of Laura Spielsdorf that it could not possibly be merely coincidence. And that worried him. What was going on? He wanted to believe that in this superstitious land there would be a perfectly logical explanation, but his diagnosis had been wrong before and now he doubted himself. There were other factors that bothered him now, things of which he had been ignorant. One of those things was the Governess, Mademoiselle Perrodon, and she worried him. She had been so vehement and so apathetic and dismissive. There was definitely something going on there. Voglreiter realised that he needed to arm himself with more knowledge, for when he returned in the light of day his first and foremost mission was to prevent Emma Morton from coming to any further harm. He had begun to formulate a theory about the Governess, but he had to admit that it was mostly based on Renton's objectives. But Voglreiter had little else to go on. And as he thought about the problem a banner of darkness ruffled fleetingly across the path before him, something that rippled of shadow and threaded about the trees. The vision was so brief as to be all but a glimpse, and the night air become suddenly bitingly cold. Perhaps it was a bird whose startled call broke the silence, the sound making Voglreiter's mount baulk and leap. The cry was followed by a long moment of utter silence. Voglreiter's horse became spooked and it snorted in fear.

"Come on, boy," the Doctor coaxed, patting his mount's neck, but the horse stammered in its stride. "Jupiter, come on, boy."

Soothing and encouraging words they were that issued from Erich's lips, yet they were all but useless. The horse snorted and abruptly stopped and would not be coaxed forward. With faltering steps Jupiter began to back up. A low branch tapped against Erich's shoulder and he stooped to avoid being struck. Along the darkened forest path a cold wind came rushing. It poured down from the alpine heights and tore through the trees, whirling a maelstrom of leaves about the frightened animal and rider. Voglreiter's hat was torn from his hairless head and bounced away into the shadows, his cloak danced up and flapped madly. The horse spun around, but Voglreiter pulled hard on the reins. Champing at the bit Jupiter whinnied in terror, his eyes growing white and popping.

"'Round, Jupiter," the Doctor insisted, but the horse did not respond. "What's the matter with you?"

Jupiter jumped into the air and spun about again, whipping his tail into a stinging lash and voiding his bowels in the path. Voglreiter lost directional control of the animal and slid down in his saddle. There he teetered upon the edge of a fall, his feet twisting in the stirrups. In a desperate attempt to break his fall Erich's fingers uncurled from the bridle and let go, grasping at thin air. Turning circles in its distress and rearing up on his hind legs, Jupiter bucked and tossed Voglreiter to the ground. The Doctor fell into the darkness as Jupiter bolted into the forest, flinging stones from his hooves, bridle straps streaming like undulating ribbons in the wind. Painfully Voglreiter landed heavily in the path and pitched onto his left side, his hip striking against a large rock, his elbow sinking into a muddy rut. As he rolled his cheek was smeared with the horse's excrement and the warm filth befouled his lips. Spitting and gagging he tumbled down a grassy embankment. The roll knocked the wind from his lungs and he lacerated his skin upon stone and thistle. With a pained cry, Erich came to rest at the bottom of the ditch, flat on his back beside the water's edge, his body scratched and bruised. He tried to catch his breath, but the cold wind rushed down from the wood and covered him in a wave of seared leaves. The leaves clogged up his nostrils and Erich felt as if he were choking upon the dung that polluted his mouth. With a retch he spat out the excrement and with a laboured and deep inhalation, he managed to wipe away the vile waste, but he had lost sight of Jupiter. The night had swallowed up the horse, but when Erich had regained his breath, he gasped out a useless call, though his voice was stifled by the rushing of the wind.

"Jupiter, Jupiter, come back, boy!" The Doctor's stentorious breath expelled sharply and the words turned into mist as they left his lips. He knew the horse was gone and that there was no use any longer in calling after it, for Jupiter had bolted in terror. But there _was_ something else here in the dark, something that spiralled up out of the blackness. He felt its nearness and a tingle ran along his spine. It was surely one of those silly little anomalies that he had so often encountered in his long search for the truth; yet irrationally he could not explain his own fear. Still, it was with him, here in the night, in the dark, vacillating a flow of nastiness and violence that was coming fast. Voglreiter felt it, whatever it was, like a pulse throbbing in the dark, thrumming in his ear. As it came it made a harsh snarling cry, one that was half-masked by the roar of the wind, and the sound was high and strident and bone chilling. Could it be a growl, a feral animal perhaps, even a wolf? There was a torment in his chest when Erich breathed and he raised a hand and felt his ribs, wincing in pain as a burning sensation shot through his injured elbow. His torso smarted with hurt when he pressed his fingers to his chest.

With difficulty he struggled painfully upright and clambered to his knees, his hat gone, his sleeve ripped, and knelt in the dark like a supplicant before an altar. He listened disparagingly to the last dull echoes of his horse's receding hooves, and the wind plucked ferociously at his cloak. A blast of cold whipped in the air. The dark came alive then, came alive in the light of a silver moon as the great celestial lamp burst from its cloudy prison and beamed through the vaulted trees. By the light of that moon Erich beheld a white vision skimming over the surface of the stream. The reflection was not a thread of mist and yet it weaved and floated, but it moved quickly and possessed a hallucinatory solidity. It resembled a great cat with a tail that thrashed in the waves of silver-black water, but the vision was twisted and stalked upright and the thing might have, at flickering points, appeared almost human but for the fact that its shape kept shifting. He glimpsed the white and ectoplasmic form as it whirled through the viridescent spears of the reeds, trailing silver fire upon the water's surface, the water rippling in its wake. And it came upon him swiftly. When Voglreiter looked from the water to the bank of the stream, he saw nothing there that could cast a reflection at all, and he gasped. The wind blew hard against the Doctor's body, forcing him back, bending him like a sapling. The reflected figure leapt from the water and onto the muddy ground, and in that instant it blossomed into solid reality, metamorphosed into the body of a beautiful woman with long auburn hair and red, red lips. Her marble skin was visible through the sheer fabric of her gown, her breasts, her dark pubis, and her hips and thighs. Her feet seemed to glide rather than to take step upon the terrestrial earth, and Erich's eyes filled with the wonder of her. His mouth opened wide in an exclamation of amazement but the wind blew grit into his throat. Sputtering and coughing the Doctor tried to regain some of his senses. He fought against the blast of the wind and attempted to stand up, but the beautiful female phantom bore down upon him, pressing her icy skin against his flesh. Her weight was like a block of ice that fell onto Erich's body and forced him to the ground, prostrate on his back. The Doctor fought against the female creature, thrashing at her, but she was strong and his weak flailing proved useless. Over the rocks the two bodies rolled, locked in a struggle that foretold the certain death of the loser. She was strong, stronger than any man Voglreiter had ever known, her grasp so powerful that her fingers closed and squeezed through his muscles right to the bone. A snarl vomited from the woman's lips, a growl unto an animal's growl, issuing from her glistening red mouth, spilling beyond a row of long pointed teeth from which dripped a stream of ropey slime. The smell that poured from that infernal maw was rank, putrid with the stench of tainted blood, and her teeth snapped down wildly, viciously, diving for his face. Voglreiter gasped and a foetid gob of sticky mucus made a long dripping string toward his mouth. He tried to turn his face away but could not, for the creature held him fast, but the Doctor managed to raise his forearm to shield himself. Yet the defensive action was futile. The spittle seared his lips and burned his tongue as if it were acid. In that instant, his sky blue eyes locked with those of the female demon. Therein Voglreiter beheld the terrified reflection of his own face, his own scream caught in the blue sapphire flame of her mad gaze, and he balled his fist and thrust his hand into that awful snapping jaw. The sharp teeth grazed his knuckles and went in deep, lacerating his hand. A spray of blood spurted from the wound as barbed papillae rasped Erich's flesh. The Doctor gave a pained cry as the demon's tongue flashed about his balled fist, sucking at the warm surge of blood. Then its snarl became even more guttural, more feral and the monster tossed her head savagely from side to side, like a dog savaging a rabbit, and Erich screamed and let go. In that violent motion the razor sharp fangs flayed the skin from the back of his hand, peeled it away as if it were the skin of a ripe peach, spraying blood, and exposing the thick blue veins and tendons beneath. Blood spurted upon his face and down his arm. And then, in his terror, Voglreiter thought he heard the strangest thing above the sound of his own cries. It was a voice, no, a scream, that infiltrated his head and squeezed physically at his brain. For one horrible moment he thought that he might throw up, for the sound made him dizzy. But it was not truly a voice, as he knew speech, it was the sound of something alien that had learned the art of talking, yet got it all wrong. The reverberating noise throbbed and pulsed and became all distorted in the rushing wind. The sound was one that an animal might make had it grown human vocal chords, screeching between the thin periphery of life and the kingdom of death. It was a snarl and a bellow and a shriek mutated into a mad howl. Raking away within his head, telling him that his fate was sealed, Erich's ears began to bleed. The howl rang out memory, and memory flashed him back into Laura Spielsdorf's bedroom as the invalid lay awaiting his examination. Memory made him view, as an outsider watches, his own actions. He looked on as he inserted his fingers into Laura's young flesh, between her thighs and into her virginal depths. Voglreiter could even feel the warmth of her, and the spread of her as his fingers pushed into that place where no male flesh had ever penetrated. Memory accused him and memory stabbed at him and tore one vision away for another, watched on with a ferocious eye as a long and lingering stroke played at the pink bud of Emma Morton's nipple. The scent of her sickly flesh still lingered upon his hands and Voglreiter knew then his violations. He had only a moment to react to his transgressions before he realised just what it was that assailed him. He had been foolish and wrong in his assumption that the Governess lay at the root of this evil. Why he had even thought that the woman might have been a villain was as foolish a concept as he had ever had. It was only akin to his crossing himself and suddenly and stupidly believing that God might be a real power. With his other hand he managed to snatch up a twig from the whirling maelstrom of the wind and into the soft earth at his side he etched two lines in the dirt. The stick snapped in twain before the cross was completed and so did his fingers. The demon held his wrist firm and splayed his fingers, drawing them slowly back, one by one, breaking them at the last joint. Voglreiter screamed and screamed again but there was no ending the torture. And then the creature covered him with its palpitating form and it altered, transmuted into a hideous half-formless mass that sprouted sickle shaped claws, and those claws were honed, lethal, poisoned dripping ungula, curved like those of a cat. Swiftly those spurs flashed yellow in the moonlight, slashed out to peel away skin, making a bleeding mess of Doctor Voglreiter's handsome face. He was not so attractive beneath his thin, pink casing of flesh. Indeed the horror that was exposed spoke a thousand words about the ugliness within all men. And men took what they wanted and defiled beautiful girls to gratify their bestial lusts. They were all animals to Carmilla, and their base desires meant less than the survival instinct that had driven her through an eternity of the hunger perpetual. In hating these men and the branded power that came with them, Carmilla understood how much she despised that part of her own being. She wanted freedom and the liberty to live and to love, though she also understood that those emotions were but a sentimental longing that would always be impossible. As the Doctor screamed Carmilla threw back her head, like a lioness, and roared in defiance to the night, to her father and to the moon, and then she ripped Erich to pieces.

Chapter 11:

Destination-Karnstein Castle

In which Baron Hartog, General Spielsdorf and Mr. Morton journey to the ruin of Karnstein Castle.

Mr. Morton's coach ploughed through the forest, its team straining at the straps. The horses were wet with rain and sweat and their knotted manes were tangled with brittle leaves. They had driven through a storm and their flanks were flecked with ochre mud and the road was sodden and slippery. The coach bounced over muddy potholes and jolted with bone shaking regularity, but the driver did not slacken pace. The carriage had passed the village and the castle on the hill almost an hour ago and now it was approaching the grounds of Morton's estate. Mr. Morton was twofold in his feelings. He was angry that his business in the Capital should be interrupted by a letter that bespoke grave dangers should he tarry in the city for any undue length of time. Who were his servants to dictate his movements? He was even angrier for the missal had been signed by his butler, Renton. Renton had advised that Emma's circumstances had taken a turn for the worse and that it was best that he return immediately. There was a critical possibility that she might even die before he got back. Renton had called in the Doctor, a decision that Mademoiselle Perrodon had resented and challenged. What was this Governess playing at? Morton had thought her capable of running his house in his absence, but the fact of the matter had become quite obvious, that she was not. Perhaps some form of discipline might be called for to sort this out, and Morton entertained the brief fantasy of his options. Just after eight o'clock, when the sun had breasted the mountain peaks, the coach pulled up to Morton's door and he alighted, his body aching and sore from the bone-rattling jostling it had taken during the long ride from Vienna. Morton stretched his back and legs and went inside. On the stairs he saw Renton, donning his coat as he came down to greet his Master.

"Good morning, Sir," Renton said, straightening his collar.

"Good morning," Morton replied, but he was irritated that such social pleasantries were necessary when the morning had been far from delightful. Mr. Morton removed his tall hat and cloak and passed them to the butler.

"How is Miss Emma?"

"She's sleeping, Sir, peacefully."

"_Sleeping peacefully"_ inferred that she might already be counted among the dead, and Morton pushed the valet brusquely aside and ran up the stairs.

In the girl's bedroom Morton encountered the maid Gretchin. The girl had stayed with Emma all through the night and was weary herself. She smiled courteously and suppressed a yawn, a few stray hairs hanging limply from the fringe of her bonnet. The Master came into the room and hurried up to the bed. Gretchin rose from her chair and stood in the doorway, awaiting any new instructions. Emma looked pale and sick and this confused Morton, but death had its allures and its boundaries were somehow strangely attractive. For a long moment he looked upon his daughter, wondering if she were actually breathing, and then she groaned and half rolled over in her bower. She appeared for one moment so much the image of her mother, especially toward the end, that Morton gulped and almost looked away. Her skin was cinereal, drained of the colour and vitality of splendid youth, and she seemed to be dreaming for her eyes were darting rapidly under the lids. The girl looked so sick, but it was with craving and hardly tenderness that he reached out and felt her cold, thin hand. The feeling of her clammy white skin under his hot living touch made Morton shudder in both repulsion and yearning. An expression of confusion knotted up his face and he closed his eyes. No, he told himself, he must not bare his soul here, not in front of these people. It would be all too easy to give in to this hunger. He dropped his daughter's icy hand and shedding the desire for death's dark pleasures in favour of the needs of the real world; Morton turned to the butler and asked tersely for an explanation.

"Had it not been for the Doctor and these remedies…" Renton protested almost indignantly, pointing to the vases of garlic flowers and intimating the cross looped about the girl's neck, but he did not finish his sentence. Of course to Morton it sounded all so very grotesque and unbelievable, that a garden weed should have the power to stave off a life threatening illness and that belief in superstition could afford protection against calamity. What foolish fables had been spreading through this household in his absence?

"It's ridiculous!" Morton refuted. "I can't believe it."

"Neither could I, Sir, at first." Renton shook his head as if to reiterate that he too had found the whole thing incredulous until this very moment. "But let the Landlord tell you."

The landlord came to the Morton house as the sun passed its zenith. The daylight shivered with a chill breeze as he walked up to the front entrance, the dust of dead ivy scattering in his footsteps. Kurt removed his tri-cornered hat and knocked upon the door. It was Renton who received and ushered him into the parlour, and there to meet with Mr. Morton. The gentleman was seated in a velvet chair, fiddling impatiently with the lace at his cuff. He looked up sharply.

"So tell me," Morton began, "what is it that I should know, what is it that vexes my daughter?"

The Landlord took a deep breath and twirled his hat in his hand. "It is the Karnsteins come back." His voice was flat and emotionless, his eyes didn't even blink.

Morton gazed at the man and then at Renton and a derisive scoff was forming his lips into a circle. Surely this joke went too far.

"To that old ruined castle?" he remarked incredulously. What was this rubbish and what did a long dead family have to do with his daughter's illness?

Mr. Morton had heard the tale of the Karnstein family some time ago, when he had first purchased this property. It was a colourful legend like any other, one that spun an aura of mystery about the countryside, but not one that could be taken seriously. He had heard that the once noble family had all died, or been killed, and that their restless ghosts haunted the province. It was nothing but a legend, a fairy tale.

"The story is they were all wiped out." Morton remarked with contempt, although he had to admit that he did not know the exact circumstances of the Karnstein's demise. He had assumed the Karnstein line had fallen to a bout of plague or some other virulence that had eons ago burned its way throughout Stiria. Morton gave a dismissive wave of the hand. This was too fantastic, to think that ghosts were responsible for his daughter's sickness.

"Aye, Sir, so we thought." The Landlord nodded solemnly and in his pause they heard the first faint rumble of distant thunder as it gathered in the mountains.

Once the thunder was silenced Kurt began to relate a short, but frightening history.

"There was a young nobleman," he began, and Morton and Renton were silent as the man spoke, "whose sister was murdered by them."

Upstairs a door opened upon the corridor and a shadow spilled onto the carpet.

"This gentleman, the Baron Hartog…" Kurt continued, his voice measured and unchanging, "he crept up to the castle late at night and he lay in wait. By the light of the moon he watched from the tower that rises over the castle graveyard. And he saw a shroud and he knew that without it there would be no resting place for any vampire."

"How preposterous!" Morton snorted and turned away. "Vampire!" he exclaimed scornfully. He felt that he really did not have time for any more silly stories. Natural history told him that vampires were bats, creatures from the far southern deeps of the Americas, mammals that drank blood. But the Landlord was not speaking about natural history, but rather of unnatural history, and the vampires he intimated were the reanimated corpses of the long dead Karnstein family.

"I know, Sir, because I remember that night clearly," said Kurt, and then he fixed Mr. Morton with a blank stare, steadfast in his surety and that nothing would sway him otherwise. "If I may continue…"

Sullenly Morton nodded his acquiescence.

"Baron Hartog took the shroud and waited," and here the Landlord paused as he recalled the Baron all spattered in blood, staggering into his father's tavern and falling down exhausted upon the floor. "He chopped off the head of the vampire and he staked the rest in their graves. That was forty years ago, Mr. Morton. And the Karnsteins have now returned."

"If it was forty years ago and they were all killed, then how could these… these things be here now? It's nonsense." Morton felt his breath becoming short and there was a heated restriction pressing down upon his body.

"I beg you to listen to him, Sir," Renton interjected. "Think of Miss Emma."

Morton sprang up from his chair. Had everybody lost their minds? With an indifferent groan he made a dismissive gesticulation in the air.

"If you don't believe me, Sir," said Kurt, "ask General Spielsdorf."

And then a strange flicker passed over Morton's face. It was a moment of recognition, one wherein the possibility that external and evil forces might have to be recognised and accepted in the want of a less ridiculous explanation. Had not the General's niece died recently in similarly mysterious circumstances?

"General Spielsdorf? Yes, I remember now. That was where he said he went!"

Morton recalled Ebhardt's visit, and in his mind's eye he replayed the young man's very words. _"The General has gone away, Sir, to visit a friend, the Baron Hartog."_

Morton appeared distracted as he flailed about not knowing immediately what to do next. If he accepted this fantasy then he must accept all of the foolish terrors of childhood.

"Sir?" asked Renton, thinking that someone should take immediate charge of this vital situation and that the time for action was now if they were to save Miss Emma's life.

"Where is the Doctor?" Morton asked curtly. The Doctor at least would put this rubbish about vampires to bed, for he was a man of the real world. Both Renton and the Landlord shrugged their shoulders. "It's past noon. He said he'd be here this morning."

"Yes, he said he'd come," Renton reiterated. "Shall I send for him?"

Turning abruptly away Morton snatched up his riding crop. "No, I'll go myself."

The gentleman stormed from the parlour and left the other two men to stare after his receding footsteps. There was much to do, and though his daughter's life hung in the balance, it was the darkness within his soul that now propelled his actions. Inside his mind there was fire and the fire made a delirious madness burn over his skin. He was glad to leave the house immediately. Outside he called for his horse.

From the upper floor the shadow roiled and twisted into solidity and became the girl Carmilla. She stood still, as if hewn from stone and she was looking down and watching intently as Morton slammed the door in his exit. The only movement in her at all was the faint and secretive smile that touched upon her carmine lips.

Gretchin gently closed Emma's bedroom door. She did not hear the beautiful Carmilla behind her until the girl spoke, startling the maid who spun around, her hand leaping to her bosom.

"Gretchin," said Carmilla, a little apologetic grin upon her lips, as if it had amused her that the girl should react in fright. "Do not disturb Mademoiselle Perrodon today, please. She does not feel well."

"Yes, Miss." Gretchin gave a slight curtsey.

A flicker of concern then passed over Carmilla's face and she paused with her lips pursed upon a question. "How is Miss Emma?" she enquired.

"She doesn't seem to get any better," Gretchin confessed. "She had a quiet night. Are you going in to see her, Miss?"

The maid extended her hand to open the door for the houseguest, but Carmilla stilled her with a gentle touch.

"Perhaps…" and Carmilla stalled as she spoke, "but I cannot stand the smell of those flowers."

Gretchin merely nodded, knowing that the flowers were a point of contention that would bring her into conflict with Mr. Renton should she go counter to his orders. Yes, they did have a strong odour, she had to admit that, but she was not going to remove them. If she did, Gretchin knew that she would have to deal with the lecherous Mr. Renton, and he would no doubt find some puerile excuse to chastise her.

"Could you not remove them?" Carmilla asked sweetly.

Gretchin gasped lowly at the suggestion. "I dare not, Miss," she stated emphatically. "Mr. Renton said I was not to remove them under any circumstances."

"Where is Mr. Renton?"

"I don't know, Miss."

"Thank you, Gretchin."

Gretchin bowed and Carmilla dismissed the maid and let her return to the lower floor. The garlic flowers must be removed, they were repellent and the stench stung her nostrils. They made a barrier that was difficult to penetrate. She could smell the rank odour filtering under the door. But Carmilla could not forsake her love; she had to gain access to that room. And the vengeful party of men would return soon. Carmilla knew she had little time.

Morton diverged from the road and rode through the park, weaving between the trees and galloping through the undulating landscape. It was afternoon now and the daylight was turning grey. Above the distant mountain peaks Morton glimpsed sheets of intermittent lightning. A storm was brewing and the afternoon was darkening. Soon the sun would disappear, and the night would come, and with the night who knew what horrors would crawl from their mouldering tombs. Over a felled tree Morton spurred his horse and the chestnut mare dashed up and onward toward the village. From a short distance ahead Morton heard the sound of hooves and wheels. He pulled at his reins and his mount veered down an embankment and onto the road. A few metres up the way Mr. Morton came upon a coach and he halted alongside the vehicle. He was surprised to see the General Spielsdorf seated within. The General was leaning on the opened window sill; an older, grey-haired gentleman occupied the seat beside him.

"Why, Mr. Morton," the General exclaimed in surprise.

"General Spielsdorf!"

Morton was unaware that the General had returned from his visit to Moravia, and he would have liked to have stopped to engage a conversation, but the urgency of his circumstance dictated that he could not.

"I cannot stop now," he spoke quickly, turning his horse back into the road. "I am on my way to fetch the Doctor."

Both the General and his passenger exchanged a knowing look and then Spielsdorf cast his eyes to the rear of the coach. Morton followed their gaze and a young man on a dappled horse approached from behind. It was Ebhardt and he reined in before Mr. Morton.

"The Doctor is with us," he said solemnly, and Morton was confused.

He couldn't see the Doctor anywhere in the party, not on horseback nor in the coach. Morton was baffled but he had no time to play games.

"What?" he questioned and Ebhardt indicated that the gentleman should approach the back of the carriage.

Lashed to the luggage tray was a thing that had once been human, and Mr. Morton could not suppress his horror at the sight. It was the Doctor's body. The corpse was dressed in the Physician's garb and the little magnifying glass that he wore still hung on its golden chain about his neck. Yet his face had almost been torn away, stripped of flesh, shredded beyond the point of recognition. There was blood everywhere, clotted and scabby and red, splashed all over the remains, yellow bones and teeth poked through the rent skin. The Doctor's limbs hung limp and twisted. The vision was sickening. General Spielsdorf beheld the shock that registered on Morton's face but he did not speak and for a moment the whole world fell into complete and utter silence.

Thunder, faint and distal rumbled above the mountains. Aphony strangled the rumbling disquiet and silence clung to the tiered alpine slopes and the woods. The late afternoon was dying and the waning glimmers of the failing sun were obscured by a phalanx of grey cloud. The open vein of the stream in the park flowed on, its ichors turning blackly silver with the oncoming shadows. The deer and the wolf went into hiding, the owl and the kite flew into secret places. The great oak by the house became a stencilled cut-out against the mortars; the withered ivy was etched as black veins upon the walls. Even the wind wound down. The new evening was gagged into a suffocating stillness. Emma's room was occluded; two candles were expiring as their wicks simultaneously burned out expelling twin ribbons of curling blue smoke in the air. Emma groaned in her sleep and her hand strayed to the filigree about her neck. Toying absently with the holy symbol she dreamed, not knowing that Renton was watching her from the bedroom door. He looked upon her for a long moment and his eyes were gleaming, and then with a little twitch jumping at the corners of his lips, he stepped out of the room and softly closed the door. Preceded by his shadow he walked slowly up the corridor. His step was quiet and deliberate and when he reached Mademoiselle Perrodon's door he stopped. With a furtive glance the butler looked about to check that no one observed and then he went down on his knee.

The Governess thrashed about in her bed. Covered in sweat she writhed in a wild delirium. Her hair was all matted and knotted and her skin was flushed. She had torn away the bosom of her nightdress. Madly she stroked at the hard nipples that tipped her breasts and her face was twisted up into an agony that bespoke only suffering. The sheets were hot upon her skin so she tossed them off, and pulled the skirt of her chemise up to her belly. Caught in a dreaming hallucination in which Carmilla kissed her lips and placed her hand between her thighs, the Governess groaned aloud. The fever gripped her, and she spread her legs. Fervour would not let her go, and she mouthed Carmilla's name silently over and over, even as her fingers trailed dying embers in the torrid depths of her sex. All this Renton saw as he peeped through the keyhole, and Eros shot an arrow through to his loins. As he crouched in the hall before the door his hand strayed to the sudden swollen hardness in his breeches. He licked his lips and put his eye as close to the keyhole as he could, his eyelashes brushing against the brass. Unblinking he continued to watch from the veil of his illicit pleasure, and to listen, and soon he observed the Governess twisting around like one being whipped. She pawed at her own flesh and in her final ecstasies entered the make believe realm of paradise, climaxing, reaching the ultimate convulsion, and went limp like a rag and buried her head in the pillow. She did not know that Renton had witnessed all. When she had finished Renton smirked. He felt ambivalent, torn somewhere between lust and aversion because he despised the Governess and her perceived authority but still wanted her body. He had imagined silencing her with his member, making her kiss its length, making her groan. That's what all these uptight women wanted, the measure of a man. It would have been so much nicer to lie skin to skin against her dimpled body with the heat of a summer noon blazing from their flesh. His eyes had lingered with licentious delight over every movement of her body since the very first day she had come to this house as Emma Morton's tutor. And what a waste that was too, such a lovely girl, young and fresh. It mattered little that Mademoiselle Perrodon despised him, in fact the whole thought that she did dislike him amused Renton somewhat, but these women in their closed off seraglio were perhaps a gift from the almighty, even if they were forbidden things like the fruit hanging on Eden's tree. But that was all right, there was no love lost, for the Serpent would slip into Eden one day. And on that day the fiery hostility might be eased and bliss might inculcate both their bodies… Renton stood up and straightened his clothing, swallowed hard and went downstairs.

The coach wound along the road by the stream, rising with the swell of the landscape and continuing upward into the clouds. Ebhardt rode his dappled mare at the rear, trailing Mr. Morton's horse on a tether, the Doctor's mount on another. Inside the coach, seated in the richly appointed plush golden velvet and black leather upholstery, the men faced each other and at last General Spielsdorf spoke.

"I have travelled many miles to find Baron Hartog."

The Baron glanced at the General from under bushy, grey eyebrows. He appeared a bit wild in his countenance, like one world weary, and he sighed as he made reply.

"And very glad I am to make this journey back here with him."

A pale ribbon of lightning flashed and rippled over all three faces, glinting off the silver buckle of the Baron's old fashioned hat. Shadows washing through the forest spilled into the carriage. To Morton everything seemed so unreal. The Baron addressed Mr. Morton.

"But you, as an Englishman, Mr. Morton, will be less aware than we are of the need to seek out these evils immediately and to destroy them.

Morton could barely conceal the wrinkle of offence that crossed his face. These two men it was obvious, thought him a fool, a dupe, and ignorant because he came from a world that had always refuted such things. But how could one believe it so?

"My sister, Isabella, a girl I loved dearly, one whom I often clasped in fond embrace," said the Baron, "was killed by one of these monsters."

"Killed?"

"As was my Laura," reiterated the General.

"Part of you still thinks, Mr. Morton that we are dealing with a human being. But these are not human beings. Neither is it a wraith, a hallucination. You might even wager that if you blink well enough this horror will have all been but a terrible dream. But alas that is not so. My memory is clear and these spectres, the Karnsteins, are tangible, let me assure you."

"Then you believe that it true about this family of vampires?"

"I know that it is true."

"These monsters, they survive on human blood, Mr. Morton. Even as we speak the blood of a young innocent stokes the fire of its unholy existence."

Morton fell silent for a moment, a terrible apprehension billowing up inside his darkened mind. Was that innocent his daughter, Emma?

"You asked where we were going, Mr. Morton," said the General, "and now I will tell you. Our destination is Karnstein Castle."

Chapter 12:

History of Evil

In which Baron Hartog tells how he destroyed the fearsome Karnstein family and how Renton falls under the spell of evil.

The girl stood in the conservatory, her arms folded about her breast as if protecting herself. She was staring out into the night.

"Mircalla…" the voice called. "Mircalla…Mircalla."

She heard the summons and in the summons the demand, but how could she obey either? It was the voice of her father drifting through the ether, and then after that the call of her mother, both like broken strains of music that issued forth out of the grave. They sang of guiles and of deceits and their arias were a song of death, commanding her to kill and to flee. But how could she kill the girl she loved? This love was a hunger that could not be satiated by gorging on lust at one voracious meal; it was in truth a yearning and a need. And the hunger to be loved, that was something else entirely, something elusive and tragic. Emotion cracked Carmilla's beautiful countenance into a mask of sadness. She looked up at the clouds that had begun to obscure the moon and the night threw shadows over that lovely visage. A chill wind rankled and stirred the leaves in the park. The night was silvered and purple, the clouds gathering over the mountains were of a hue as dark as mulberry. There was thunder in those clouds, low and distal and heavy with the promise of a storm. This would be the final night, Carmilla whispered this veracity to herself, the last time, and it must be finished. She hugged herself, but there was little comfort to be had in one's own embrace and tears welled up her blue eyes. There was never anyone to hold you, no parental comfort and no lover. Such dreams were dissipation in the wind. The sound of the dinner gong ringing through the house chased away the whispers but it triggered the dull echo of remorse in her heart. The servants were preparing for dinner, ignorant that the world was abruptly changing or of what Carmilla must now do to protect herself and her love.

The party crested the hill and the castle stood out blackly against the opaque sheen of the moon and the purple sky. Mr. Morton had begun to feel the stirrings of unpleasant reservations in the pit of his gut, an awful dread co-mingled with a little fear, a last warning to flee, to run and never return. He bit down on his lower lip and drew in a long hard breath. General Spielsdorf and Baron von Hartog wore masks of stern authority, and neither of them so much as blinked. Before the space of another thought, as if the very building had somehow registered Morton's apprehensions, the carriage rolled to a stop in the ruined courtyard of Karnstein Castle. It halted before the great door that was the entrance into hell and a glacial chill bid the men enter. Above the door the Karnstein family crest, a golden, beaked hippogriff opened its maw as if to swallow them whole. Baron Hartog was the first to step down from the carriage and he lighted a lamp and held it aloft. He had passed through that door four decades ago and he knew that it led to a void deeper than the damned soul should ever know. It was the mouth of the beast and it mocked the posse of vengeful men, dared them to enter at their own peril and be lost forever. Morton was the second to descend from the coach. He stood in a sea of mist and looked up to the keep's highest turret. There were vines choking the mortars and the whisper of crumbling stones and grit seeped into the stale atmospheres as if the building were a beast shifting in its slumbers. Hartog followed his gaze and smiled with a secret knowledge. It had been up there, in that tower, that he had challenged and defeated the beautiful undead. A deathly silence hung over the castle and although the place seemed as if it were decaying into some lost and dreaming serenity, an unsettling aura clung to its stones, an aura of death. It was a great grey mass that had held its dominion over the valley for an illimitable age and in its shadow enemies had been challenged, fought and vanquished. But that was a history written in another time, but even from the earliest of times the feeling of evil had not clung to pinnacle and point. The higher turrets were obscured in cloud, its windows like eyes blinded to the dizzying fall of the wilderness that it commanded, an uncharted wildwood of trees that covered darkling slopes and rock and ravine. With a suppressed shudder Morton cast a hesitant glance over the pointed arches and the high buttresses. He saw that the ashlars façade had been eroded by wind and weather, every line was jagged. The carved mouldings had once boasted minutely detailed mythological scenes and battles but now those details were vague and broken. The capitals had once been beautiful and elaborately detailed and the battlements were no longer rows of perfect teeth, but shattered and wrecked, the room's derelict. Centuries ago some wily architect applying a talent for sensible geometry had drawn up the lines for the foundations of this edifice. It was blood that had built the feudal towers, the blood of carriers, of carpenters, hodmen and smiths, of stone-breakers and barrow-men, of labourers impressed into service to build the house of their lord. Their masonry had withstood six hundred winters, and it was the hands of their ancestors who had destroyed it. Baron Hartog knew that history, of the night the villagers stormed the castle and set fire to it, and he had recorded it years ago in a work he had entitled _"The Karnsteins: A History of Evil"._ And he knew that it was foolish to think that there would be death for the living dead in the kiss of the pure flame. These demons could only be destroyed by staking or decapitation, fire would not serve. As he looked about he saw only scorched futility, and to light the way to cleansing the world he guided the party of gentlemen with the light of his lamp. By its golden glimmer all three men passed through that great gaping door not knowing what awaited them within.

Inside the castle Morton strained his eyes through the gloom. Coal-dyed eddies rippled in the mist that curled all the way up to the vaulted ceilings. It was chill within the chateau; a glacial cold swirled about the men and then it rushed upward into the spaceless heights. The icy draft touched Morton's cheek with a cold caress. He peered up into the vast high darkness. Vaguely, he could just make out row upon row of sculpted arches hewn into the smooth stone, their carved details disappearing as the view surrendered to black. These calcified terraces were riven with what must have been spectacular mouldings, but they were steeped in shadows. Raised galleries were punctuated by stairs and endless corridors that seemed to branch off into nowhere. Filaments of watery light showed through the slender apertures of loopholes, narrow slits high above in the gloom girded by circular stairs that ascended to infinity and possibly even beyond. Heavy beams and high transverse ribs interlocked to hold the titanic structure upright and rigid in an everlasting and steadfast embrace despite the scorched signs of fire's astonishment. This great house seemed so much bigger when one stepped within its walls, for everywhere the eye could perceive the dim spaces expanded above into the firmament or below into an abyss of vast distances that belied reality. Morton heard the clattering echo of his own footsteps and had to admit that he was afraid. Upon every wall the long dead Karnstein's glared from gilded frames and Morton could have sworn that some of those black eyes had moved, that they watched with cold malignancy.

Baron Hartog gave a wry smile as he walked slowly ahead of the other two men.

"I was determined to avenge the death of my sister," he told them. "I knew where these monsters sprang from and what had to be done to rid the world of them."

In his mind's eye he was with his pretty sister Isabella, long, long ago. She was still a child and had not yet reached her fifteenth year. They were seated in the parlour, sharing the velvet settee. Isabella had been singing, a sweet tune, as thrilling in her pitch as is the thrush wooing its amour. When she had ceased and smiled she had placed her head in her brother's lap. Hartog recalled stroking her ebony locks, plaiting those strands of midnight, and how he was intoxicated by their obsessive perfume. And then he had kissed the young woman on her cheek, stroking her velvet skin, tasting the dolour of regret and loss in the salt of his own tears. She had been so beautiful and had died so young.

Hartog forced the memory deeper and locked it away. Looking up to the gallery and the twisting stairs that led to the tower he saw himself standing upon the lip of eternity. Hartog's sword had glinted chrome in the moonlight that night, and beyond it sparkling sheath he had watched in fascinated awe as the shrouded entity had approached. It had come to reclaim its shroud, for without that veil it could not rest in the spoiled confines of its grave. As if it had been a thing alive, shroud had slithered from his grasp and snaked across the flagstones, and the monster had held out a hand and the cerement had twined with the rest of its funeral garb. Peeling away, veil by veil, the demon had revealed itself.

"But face to face," Hartog whispered, "my limbs seemed paralysed. I prayed to God to give me back their strength."

He remembered how the thing had come forward, stepped from its cerecloths with arms outstretched, inviting an embrace. The smell of midnight and heliotrope had wafted heady from its undead flesh.

The Baron paused in his tale and placed his lamp upon a dusty table. A candle tree upon that table had run into a river of wax, spiders had spun a tapestry of lace from candle to wall, silken threads were taut from arch to ceiling. He watched a spider scuttle nimbly away from the intrusive light of the lamp. Hartog closed his eyes for a second and his lips trembled. In that moment so long ago he had gone weak, as if all the strength of his manly body had been drained, as if his vital essences were all but diluted. The visions tortured his memory through a screen of fog. The revenant had come to his side, its skin white, its hair wafting and spun of golden silk. As lovely as Aphrodite in all of her Hellenic splendour it had brushed its body against his body.

"I was transfixed," he related gravely, as if in admission he knew the greatest of any shame, "and when the moment came I could not move."

A frisson clawed away at his skin and he suddenly felt cold. Here he must relive a moment of sheer and abject terror. He once again beheld the curve of her form, the swell of her bosoms, the partly obscured triangle of her sex.

"That moment has been a nightmare all my life." And Baron Hartog knew that it had also been a nightmare of guilty longing that he scarce could admit to any man alive.

The Baron turned and faced the General and Mr. Morton. "I was saved by a cross I wore," he said, and his fingers strayed to his chest. On a leather thong about his neck hung the very same holy symbol that had precluded his death all of those years ago. The cross glinted gold and ebony in the lamplight. "As it touched the vision of beauty that confronted me I..." Recalling the moment when his cross had branded the milky skin of the vampire's naked breast, the nobleman stuttered. "I felt a shock of evil... and God in his mercy gave power to my arm!"

Once again he felt his fingers tangle in the demon's hair and pull back, pull hard. He saw the snapping jaws and the dreadful, poisoned dripping teeth, and he saw his sword describing a silver arc through the mist and the tide of crimson blood that had spurted from the torso and sprayed his face in a shower of clotted ruby. As he cut the creature's head clean from its shoulders its body had sagged and fallen at his feet, his boots sticky with gore. He had stood insensible for a long time, still holding the head by its yellow tresses, until with a cry of horror he had flung it from his clutch and dropped his sword.

"It was a woman!" declared Morton in surprise, as if such a thing could not have been possible. For him women were things of pleasure, not power.

Baron Hartog looked upon him and his eyes gleamed.

"A very beautiful woman," he responded and a clap of thunder rang out above the mountain.

She had dressed in her blue silk and posed in the parlour, her legs comfortably crossed, her hands folded in her lap. Carmilla's skin radiated a corona of soft gold and her lips glistened like garnets. With a gentle smile she looked upon Renton as he set the tea service on the table near her seat.

"I think I will sit with Miss Emma for a while," she told him, and her eyes shone with the colour of the sea where its deeps are sky-dyed.

"Yes, Miss," the butler replied courteously, but it was difficult not to stare at the girl. She was so very beautiful, thought Renton, the sight of her made his eyes ache. How could he not gaze upon that creamy skin and that tumble of auburn hair, or the curves that shaped her voluptuous body, the breasts about to escape from the flimsy bodice? Renton took a deep breath and thought it best if he left the girl to her evening refreshment. As he turned he saw his reflection in the mirror and he saw hers too, and her lips were pouting and she tossed the great mane of her hair to one side. The butler stepped forward briskly, for he needed a fast exit. There was nothing that could stop his thoughts of having the girl, right there in the parlour, on the sofa.

"Oh, Renton," she called after him. Renton paused and gulped and slowly turned around.

"Yes, Miss?"

"I wonder if you could have those garlic flowers removed." Carmilla's eyes strayed briefly upward, indicating the direction of Emma's room. She spoke lowly, her voice controlled, but there was a husky and seductive quality to it that suggested half-concealed allure. "They upset Miss Emma," she added with concern, and her big eyes became even bigger.

"I'm sorry, Miss, I can't do that. The Doctor was most insistent."

Carmilla feigned a puzzled countenance.

"That seems silly," she ventured, and was possessed of the attitude of one who truly could not comprehend the mystery. "They have a horrid smell!" She shook her head and simpered. "You wouldn't want to cause Miss Emma discomfort, would you?"

Renton looked at her and he grit his teeth. Of course this girl was correct in her observation, but his priority was the sick girl upstairs. "I'm sorry, Miss. I can't move them."

"Why not?" Carmilla continued to press her concerns. "Why are they there?"

She leant forward in her chair, straightening her back and pushing up her bosoms, one hand played with the filaments of her hair.

"I'm sorry, Miss," Renton replied hoarsely, his blood thrumming hotly in his veins. "I can't explain."

"Why not?" Carmilla insisted. She stood up and demurely dropped her gaze to her feet. The girl moved forward then, sinuous and sensual, gliding softly up to the butler to stand before him and look him directly in the eye. "I'm not a child you know."

Renton could not restrain his tongue from licking his lips. Carmilla smiled.

"You are in some things, Miss," he assured Carmilla, but she had read his thoughts even before their sounding had left his lips.

"What things?"

In her face, if Renton had only been able to see, he might have read the truth that Carmilla knew more than he could ever know and that his fate was sealed.

She laughed softly at his words and gently tossed back her lovely head. Fire glinted sparks from the jewel about her slender neck. Renton was fighting the compulsion to hold her and to kiss her and she was teasing him, he knew it. Boldly he grasped her by the shoulders, his fingers at last feeling the cool velvet of her almond flesh and her eye travelled to his hand and then back to his face.

"It would be best if you keep away from Miss Emma's room," he advised soberly, "and from Mademoiselle Perrodon."

A flicker of confusion passed its shadow over Carmilla's lovely and flawless face. "Why Mademoiselle Perrodon?" she asked, and Renton squeezed her shoulders even harder, but she hardly flinched.

"She's a wicked woman..." the butler decreed and then added, "if she's human!"

Carmilla appeared horrified, as if she had finally realised the perilous danger that she might be in. "You don't mean..."

"Yes, Miss," Renton assured, his words cutting off her sentence before she had finished speaking.

"Oh, no!" the girl exclaimed, and in a fit of feigned terror she threw herself into Renton's arms. He could not repress the abrupt swelling of his member as she pressed hard against him, and Renton was lost for the feminine manoeuvring of man's lust is changeless. Carmilla placed her fair head upon his shoulder and pushed her thighs into the butler's body. She smiled inwardly as she heard his sharp intake of breath. Groaning he fumbled with her body, not knowing what to hold, what to touch, the silk of her dress sliding over the satin of her skin, and her scent intoxicated him. In a feeble and transparent move to sooth her trembling Renton began to stroke her hair, but Carmilla was victorious in her deception and she calculated his destruction, squirming against him and raising her sweet mouth to the lobe of his ear. Gently she bit the flesh, and then sucked on it and Renton's sex almost burst and expelled his vital essence. But he held back, and pulled her head away, and their lips met in a violently passionate kiss. Renton was fervid in his embrace, pawing at the girl's skin, his coarse grasp raking at her. In response Carmilla let her tongue slip between his teeth and as she kissed deeply her eyes glazed over and she stared beyond his shoulder and into the dark realm of the damned.

"They were all evil in life," said Hartog as he picked up his lamp and moved beneath the malevolent eyes of the portraits of the long dead Karnsteins, "and remained evil after death. Theirs is a history of evil, a chronicle recorded in bright crimson blood. Throughout their entire reign the Karnsteins have worshipped the Devil, offered the Lord of the Damned blood sacrifice in homage. Some of their breed had even mastered the necromantic lore and given over their souls in favour of the dark life perpetual. They possess the power to resurrect. By mine own experiences can I vouchsafe this is true, and by the end of this night you General Spielsdorf, and you, Mr. Morton, both of you will have incontrovertible proof that what I declare is not fallacy. These demons have the power to return from the tomb, to reincarnate. They come among humankind in cycles, like a beast that has been hibernating and awakens with thirst and hunger. And when they do re-emerge they forcibly erupt from their coffins and visit among the living to prey upon fresh blood. No door or barrier is proof against them once they have been given invitation to cross the threshold of the living, and they are hungry, voraciously hungry, starved for the human essence and starved for carnal desires. I knew that the only way to release the vampire from its earthly bonds was to drive a stake through its heart or to decapitate the monster, and I thank my sainted Grandmother for that knowledge. That night, avenging Isabella, I disinterred their bodies. One by one I dug down deep into their graves and did what had to be done."

Baron Hartog saw it all again, the night and the graveyard, the moon and the mist.

"After I had destroyed the monster in the tower I returned to the graveyard. There was no notion of the heroic in the terrible things I had to do. There were many crypts, many black bowers protected by the walls of this ancient citadel wherein slept the evil Karnsteins, and my quest was to find them all and end their terrible nocturnal visitations upon humankind. The moon was pale and I placed my lamp upon the ground and removed my coat, and with spade and axe I ploughed the earth until it gave forth a box of rotten wormwood, and therein lay the first Karnstein to be destroyed. I reached forth and pulled back the monster's death shroud and as the transparent fabric slid away it revealed the face of an exquisitely lovely woman. I could plainly see the cherry red tips of her breasts and the whiteness of her skin, but lo, upon her chin was a stream of gore, and the gore poured from the cavity of her open mouth. That mouth was studded with a row of sharp barbed teeth. Her eyes were closed. The blood oozed and ran into the thing's grave clothes; and from the coffin a rank and thick miasma rose up in the swirling mists to assail my nostrils. Involuntarily I confess that I had gagged, heaving forth the contents of my stomach amid a flow of stinging bile. The stink and the convulsions were terrible and upon the point where I could vomit no more I wiped the putrescence from my mouth and reached out for a stake. When the final convulsion had shuddered away and the acid sting was spit from my lips, I gripped with shaking hand, a length of Mountain Ash that I had sharpened and tempered in the fire. This lethal spike I positioned above the creature's undead heart, the hardened point indented into cerement and bloodstained skin, and with a last prayer offered up to God I drove the stake down with force. The stillness of the night cracked open, and the ghastly anthropophagi opened its mouth and screamed. The stake ruptured skin and snapped ribs as it tore through the befouled and undead heart and a garnet fountain shot up from its rent breast in a repellent jet of gore. This female of the Karnsteins opened her eyes and they glowed with furious rage and accused and damned me as she howled the most piercing and dreadful shriek I had ever heard. That great gout of blood jetting forth splashed up the sleeves of my arms, turning the lace on my cuffs from white to cochineal, and the blood spattered over my face. I was sick from the vile, burning sulphur that splashed over my lips and I felt the cold body beneath squirm and thrash and kick against me within the rigid confines of the box. But I held the stake firm and soon the vampire groaned and thrashed no more and I released the shaft and collapsed against the wall of the grave. For a short while my heart raced and my breath was laboured and I trembled all over. But I had to keep moving for the night would soon be ended and I would not have accomplished the terrible work that I had set out to do. In this I told myself I was guided by the Almighty, and that I must put aside all fatigues and horrors lest my venture fail and the Karnsteins continue to rape the earth. By the pale flickering light of my lamp I went on to the next tomb, a high granite sepulchre, and with axe and pry bar I hammered and smashed and then with the strength of my shoulders I pushed the broken seal back. The stone cracked into heavy chunks, and with some force I managed to thrust them aside and open the tomb to the stars. Therein was the coffin. The lid splintered apart as I hacked into its rotting timbers, and coiled in it length like a thick grey serpent was revealed another winding sheet. When I pulled the sheet away it exposed the face of a beautiful, raven-haired man. The pallid moonlight washed over that regal visage and it shone upon high cheeks and chiselled nose and I could even see the colour of his eyes glowing through the translucent skin of his eyelids. Those eyes were the deepest hue of blue that one has ever beheld, and from both corners of his fanged mouth ran streams of copious gore. The sight was awful and yet beautiful too, and in order to perform the final rite of execution I straddled the beast, kneeling and placing my knees alongside the sleeping revenant. There issued forth a dreadful stink as my knees sank into a black tide of blood, for the blood rippled in the bottom of the box up to the depth of seven inches, and it reeked with such a disagreeable nidor that I was again almost sick unto vomiting. I trembled above that body, both hands gripping the length of my sharpened stake and I readied myself to strike down. And the handsome thing opened its eyes and its hands shot up, fingers like hooks, and it gripped my wrists and pulled me down. In a cold vice it held me fast and I overbalanced and fell heavily upon its glacial flesh. These undead creatures are strong, perhaps ten times stranger than any mortal man, and with little effort the demon clenched and held me down. In that moment the handsome face melted away and transformed into something that was hideous beyond a nightmare. It became a horrible amalgamation of Desmodus and Panthera and I cried out and I thrashed but it did me no good. And although in my terror I felt myself becoming tangled in its shroud, netted like a fish, enmeshed and smothered, I still held fast to my stave. For one ghastly second I thought the stick might snap in twain, for it glanced sharply against the coffin wall, its tip twisting in the burial garb, its length jarring in my grasp. The vampire smiled lasciviously and raised its hips against my torso and began to make obscene thrusts. My eyes opened in wide shock and revulsion. With God's mercy I did not let go of the stake, and the point of that weapon I managed to twist around till it hovered a mere centimetre from the creature's left eye. It did not even blink. With all of my might I heaved against its bind, but I could not bring the stake closer, and even as I struggled I felt the vampire's legs and thighs enwrap my own and then the horrible and inexorable traction as it pulled me even closer into the most loathsome embrace that I have ever endured. Its tongue flashed out from its fanged mouth, sticky and long, and its breath was the expelled wind of a bloated beast whose corpse has been punctured. With a leer and a sinuous movement, the monsters face evaded the point of the stake and it clamped its rotten mouth upon my lips and began to suck. That awful tongue entered in between my lips and worse, releasing the grip of one of my wrists its clawed hand swiftly ripped the buttons from my breeches and the scrabbling fingers were inside my clothing, encircling my sex. I tried to scream, and the thing slid up and down against me, clasping roughly at my testes and with one abominable thrust I felt a honed digit penetrate my body. My body went stiff and nothing can compare to the horror of that moment. Fight as I might to release my hold, it worked upon me, and it is with shame that I remember my sex going hard, my gasp of both pleasure and of pain as it drew back my foreskin and stroked violently. The creature worked rapidly upon my member, the adrenalines firing through my veins with galvanic intensity, and as it performed this vile act its tongue sealed my mouth with a monstrous kiss. How I gagged and twisted and struck out, but it only grasped at my body with a tighter clasp. I shudder that amid this mire of filth my mind conjured the image of my sister Isabella, and upon her sweet face the night burst with a thousandfold dying stars. My screams of agony and humiliation will echo that night eternal and shall their echo will pursue me all the way to Hell. How shall I confess this corruption before God, but that I was both loathed and thrilled at this degradation? And too, I do not know how but I managed to force the salivating thing from my mouth, to twist away and to gasp for breath. It gave a vile and guttural inhuman laugh and spat a clot of nauseous phlegm into my face and then it attacked my throat. In that moment I was able to move my freed hand, but only by a few centimetres, but that was enough, and as I felt my sex upon the very edge of climax the cross I wore tumbled from the folds of my bloodstained shirt. The pale moon glinted upon the holy symbol and threw a trail of yellow sparks. With one final squeeze the vampire let go of my sex, disgracefully too late as I felt the warm discharge of my own fluids, but at that very moment the creature's face buckled up and twisted with horror. The light from the cross seared its vision and as it howled I thrust down with the sliver of timber, and it entered the demons eye and burst from the back of its skull, pinning it down. Quickly I snatched up another stake and as the thing writhed and shrieked I slammed down my sharpened spike and tore its heart to strips, killing it in the filthy flesh eating box in which it lay."

An appalling silence hung over the three gentlemen, a worse than sombre pall that was punctuated only by the note of low thunder of a brewing storm gathering in the vast and high and purple sky dome.

"I worked through the night," Baron Hartog continued eventually, and in recalling his shame he set his jaw into a hard rictus, "until in my exhaustion, I could dig no more."

The General and Mr. Morton had remained mute throughout the Baron's tale, and as they passed beneath the gaze of the Karnstein ancestors Baron Hartog paused with a grimace.

"There was one grave I did not find," he told the two men with serious gravity, "that of a young girl." Hartog closed his eyes and shook his head in self deprecation. "After the horrors of the night," he confessed, "I could not spend another moment in this place."

By the end of that foul night the graveyard of the Karnsteins had burst forth its bloated corpses and they now lay pinned to the diseased earth in which they were buried. Bespattered from head to foot in filth and liquescence, Baron Hartog had knelt in prayer and then he had risen on quaking limbs and staggered through the grim primordial forest to the safety of the living terrene huddled far below. The old man told how he had fled back down the mountain to the village and the inn, and how Kurt had helped him return to the world of the sane. Hartog held up his lantern and the light washed over a web-festooned portrait hanging from a jewelled chain. "But here is her sweet and gentle face…"

The men looked up. They saw the dusty painting come alive in the shifting beams of the lamp. It was of a beautiful woman who would scarce have gone beyond her twentieth year, as gloriously exquisite as any goddess, gorgeous beyond all compare. Its tints and hues still glowed in the canvas and the visage was as alive and fresh as was the girl on the very day that she had posed for it over three hundred years ago.

"Mircalla," said the Baron, and he intoned the appellation as though it were a curse, "the Countess of the Karnsteins who died three centuries past, who lives on now, undead... a vampire."

The name rang like a strident bell in the stale atmospheres. The face that shaped that portrait had been the face of the same vile creature that had perverted and destroyed his sister Isabella. Into his father's house the demon had come, invited as guest to live and be loved, and to feed and to kill. That loveliness and that beauty had lived in Hartog's tortured memory for the last forty years. It was the face of the cockatrice, the liar and the illusionist, the succuba that had embrangled their lives with deception and masquerade.

"Marcilla!" declared the General, recognising his lovely but perfidious guest, the demon that had seduced and killed his niece. That was the face celestial, the sylph that had met him on the stairs and looked into his soul. On that eve Marcilla had silently challenged him, even as his ward was descending in her bower, enamoured of unnatural love. Marcilla, cold and confident, proud and arrogant, the daughter of a feudal lord long dead, had discarded him and his perceived authority and left the General quaking in her wake. That he had commanded an army had meant little to Marcilla, for she understood all too well that the General's own lusts were the penalty he must pay, and his brother's offspring the life forfeit.

"That girl is a guest in my house!" cried Mr. Morton. "And my daughter is dying!"

Morton's expostulation might have been comical had it not arisen out of the shameful and loathsome odium of his own hypocrisy. He turned swiftly to depart, to turn his face from these other men, to fly the castle ruin and ride to his home. The beast was there, in his house, preying upon his child, draining her life's blood and her vitality. Perhaps belated valour was the only possible way to redeem his soul. In mid step General Spielsdorf gripped his arm and stayed Morton's flight.

"Morton, wait!" he exclaimed, "Ebhardt knows every inch of these forests. He'll get to your house in half the time."

Young Ebhardt stepped up and his eyes locked eyes with the General. For now the past was debris that had washed below the bridge and flowed out into the great ocean of regret. There was no time for remorse, too many foolish things had been said and done and none of those things had been heroic, only selfish. Those deeds were as dust now for none of that past was important any more, but Emma Morton's innocent life was important, and it was Ebhardt who must fly to her rescue.

"For God's sake," Morton begged, and in his feeble pleading he saw a dark finger pointing at his core and he almost fell to his knees and sobbed. "Save her!"

A gust of wind blew a tempest through the castle entrance and with it came the laughter, a vile, mocking, derisive laughter that challenged this posse to claim an impossible victory from the clasp of their pathetic vainglory.

Renton ascended the stairs without even a glance at the etchings hanging upon the wall. He drifted past Coliseum and Pyramid with a vision blind and his thoughts were fixed. There was something he must do and it was imperative, nothing would deflect him from his path. When he reached the gallery he stared down the length of the corridor and his face was an unflinching mask, his eyes glazed and vacant. At Miss Emma's door he stopped and thrust out a hand, pushing the door open, but he did not enter the room. A wave of noxious fumes billowed from the chamber. He saw Emma Morton in her bed, her face pale, her hair a wave a fine brown silk. The girl was toying with the cross that encircled her throat, her errant fingers stroking the cool gold chain, and the tourmaline glinted with blue stars. She was moaning lowly in her sleep. Gretchin was sitting in a chair by the bedside and she too had fallen asleep.

"That cross," Renton said aloud, startling the maid awake, "it's marking her neck."

Gretchin's eyes snapped open immediately and she quickly tidied her appearance. She pushed an errant lock of her hair back under her cap and looked from the man to the girl in the bed.

"Put it back in the case." Renton flicked his eyes toward the velvet lined box on the dresser.

"It's not marking her neck, Sir," Gretchin lamely observed and Renton's eyes blazed and he vehemently spat his next command.

"Do as I say, girl!"

Gretchin felt her insides shrink and her nerve collapse. In terror she leapt out of her chair and proceeded to remove the cross.

"And take these away," the butler voiced contemptuously, pointing to the garlic flowers, a ripple of disgust twisting up his features.

"But, Sir," Gretchin protested, for she had already been enmeshed in the very same struggle over the pungent herbs before Mademoiselle Perrodon had taken to and locked herself up in her own bedroom. These counter commands from Mr. Renton were confusing and Gretchin did not wish to be the one ultimately responsible for anything awful befalling her Mistress. "You said yourself," Gretchin added cautiously, "that I wasn't to..."

"Do as I say!"

Renton turned in his fury and strode off and quaking in her fear Gretchin began to collect the vases of garlic flowers.

In the grounds of Karnstein Castle the party of avenging men searched the grounds. They tossed aside vine and bracken, scraped moss from time worn inscription, hauled aside broken branches. As they searched the clouds grew denser and the thunder seemed to draw closer upon the mountain. A thick mist began to coil about sepulchre and Seraph. Mr. Morton had become agitated. Being in this place, this mouldering necropolis had begun to put a spark to the fire of rapacious hunger in his nerves. There was death all about him, and undeath, and the growing excitement had begun to throb in his veins. Unnoticed he separated from the General and Baron Hartog and thrust aside the thick foliage of a thorny bush. Beyond this stood the blackened trunk of a lightning blasted tree and here he stopped and put out his hand to steady his stance. Gasping and groaning Morton told himself that he must not let the other's see his distemper, he had to master the fervent urge of his desires, his amorous cravings for flesh upon the brink of death. The swell of his member was insistent, and he tired to focus on the search for the tomb of the Countess Mircalla, but the whole thought of the danger and the dark only served to excite him further. He heard the General call out, but found it difficult to respond.

"Light, over here," beckoned the General, ripping away a festoon of strangling vines. Baron Hartog responded with his flickering lamp.

The light shone upon a chipped inscription but it was not that of the Countess.

"We must find that grave," said Hartog, quivering in his urgency, "and quickly."

A silver sheet of lightning illumed their gaunt and grim faces and the sky changed from mulberry to black in the space of a heartbeat.

Morton took a deep breath and struggled back through the bushes, little fanged barbs hooked into the fabric of his cloak. Wrenching his clothing free he staggered breathless to join the other men, and as he reeled he came perchance upon a granite crypt, and carved into the stone was the inscription that proclaimed the resting place of the Countess Mircalla Karnstein who had died in 1546. In that instant his focus altered and his breath came back, and he felt exultant, not weak and in his moment of triumph, for now he might expunge the evil that was woman from his soul. He called out to the General.

"Here, it's over here!"

Baron Hartog approached with his lamp, dividing the sea of mist as he came. All three men looked upon the name riven in the stone, and all three men knew then where the earth had received a girl of two score and three, some three hundred years before.

"No shroud?" the Baron asked, but no cerecloth was evident about the perimeter of the tomb. He signalled the General's footmen. "Fetch the box," he told them, and they went to work to crack open the mould covered sepulchre.

The clock was approaching the hour of midnight and the house shivered with a restless quietude as Gretchin took up the last of the garlic flowers and removed them from Emma's room. She closed the door softly and headed downstairs to the kitchen. As the maid disappeared a long shadow stained the carpet in her wake, a shadow that spilled up the stairs and undulated along the corridor. Within its billowing cloud a chaos of sparks and molten silver whirled; it splashed over the walls, twined between the banister rails and slithered over the etchings hanging in the stairwell, the glass cracked in each gilded frame as it passed. The darkness began to weave along the gallery, flowing upward, a cascade of liquid shades deeper than an oubliette; a phantom conjured from a web of shadows. From this writhing, insectile maelstrom of shadows it seemed to take on form, stifling the air with the sickly sweet perfume of living death. It ceased in Carmilla's door frame and the panel slid silently ajar. And it began a song and a summons and soon Renton, breathless in his anticipation, answered the call. He felt his chest rise and fall rapidly and he shivered but it was not with fear, but with longing, and he came up to the door and stopped. He had watched in the hallway until Gretchin had taken away the flowers, silently waiting, and the shadow had poured over his flesh and darkened his eyes. Carmilla was standing and looking at him, her red lips glistening. She had waited long enough and time was moving swiftly; an eternity of longing had governed her existence and she could wait no longer. Her love beckoned and she had to obey. There was a chill in the air, something other than cold, like the last breath leaking from the purple mouth of a corpse, but Renton did not notice because his skin was afire. He had come to Carmilla, heard the rhapsody of her song and it filled him with longing. The song she sang was a conjuration that foretold the joys of the divine. Carmilla stepped back to let Renton enter and his senses were intoxicated, filled with the scent of dying roses in the frozen air. It was the smell of a bloom gone rotten and wormy, but somehow the scent was glorious and it made him drunk with eagerness. Carmilla was a pillar of white fire, blazing there in the splintered, roiling shadows within her room. The butler gloated upon her with a thirsty gaze and a frisson twisted a serpentine path up his spine; his palms went damp and his manhood hardened. As he entered the room the door closed of its own volition. Carmilla reached up a hand and undid the ribbon at the bosom of her nightgown. The gossamer peeled away as does the wings of a new butterfly, falling aside to expose her breasts. A rush of heat flamed through Renton's body. Every nerve and sinew sparked, lit by a cosmic taper, an agony that invaded his flesh, an agony of lust and sweet corruption. In his head Renton still heard the song, the sweet lilt of Carmilla's voice and it called his name, sounding the syllables as if they were sung from the enchanted throat of malediction. Yet it was such a beautiful song and it turned his flesh to water, an enchantment that made him reel and almost swoon upon the floor. The girl gave a twisted leer but he did not see, all his vision beheld was her nightclothes as they slid even further down so that the curves of her body were freed. His eyes gloated upon her milky skin and in response she changed the beautiful pitch of her midnight song, went up a note, higher, higher. Obediently Renton came to her. She backed inch by inch toward the bed, leaving the ethereal trail of her nightdress where it fell, and spread her nakedness across a silken width of illusion and false promises. Another shock of desire went through Renton, a need to feel Carmilla's lips sealed to his lips, the darkness and his own Vulcan coil become one thunderous melding, a compact he would gladly make with the Devil. Carmilla became rigid and then went limp, a little moan escaped from her lips and she gasped and moaned and writhed about in the bed. And the night sang its chorus with a choir of dark angels. Closer Renton drew, his eyes beaming like torches, his lips wanting her lips to burn the violent inferno of his mouth. He fell down on the bed beside the girl and as he touched her skin he felt little slices of ecstasy and forever flood over his body. Every dream Renton had ever dreamed, every woman he had ever wanted, they were as nothing now. Those desires must be cast aside, for now the way was paved to awakening unto a dream that was beyond pleasure. The desire filled Renton's reeling mind with splendid perversity, consumed him, enveloped him, and it spilled through the beautiful Siren's lips and poured molten fire into his soul.

The vampire smiled as it twisted about upon the silken sheets. She ran a floating stroke over her sculptured beauty, her rose-tipped breasts, over her ivory thighs. Her white fingers played with the long auburn tresses of her hair. She was lovely, a vision more splendid than any goddess and her lips were ripe and glistening, red as blood. Her breath was hot and with the fingers of her free hand she ran her touch over her belly and began to stroke the golden forestry crowning her sex. In rapture Carmilla threw back her head and parted her legs and her scent was as potent as a newly blossomed flower.

On fire at her side, Renton was almost pleading to take her. He knew her no longer as the beautiful houseguest they had rescued from a broken carriage, shaken and afraid, but now as the confidant liberator of his desires. But Renton knew not that this lovely creature was an intimate of Death, a terrifying lover who had died yet lived. And in that desire the darkness began to envelop them as they lay upon bower of the dream. Black stars were threaded into her hair; her mouth was a crimson arch that spoke of depravity and succulent evils that were joys and carnal pleasures beyond anything Renton could ever experience. And her eyes, they were portals through which eons had passed in flame, alight with the remnants of dead suns and broken stars, they saw beyond the frail garment of the flesh. She extended white, white hands, the hands of a living corpse for no blood flowed through their veins, and those fingers were long and thin and they undid the buttons of Renton's shirt and tore the garment aside. Renton rolled onto his back and Carmilla opened his breeches, liberating his member and clasping it, and she began a slow and carnal stroke. Renton lay at the precipice of the world and he gasped and half rose to push her down onto her back, to mount her, but she held him tight and continued to seal his mouth with her kiss. A shudder raced through Renton's body. It was like pain, a sick but wonderful and breathtaking pain that heralded joys as her fingers gripped his sex. The bud of her nipple became a fruit that he wanted to eat, and her calculated caresses made his skin contract, and it was all an agony that he wanted to scream aloud of his pleasure. Carmilla's touch seemed to last for an eternity, massaging and kneading and melting his flesh, altering, remoulding the clay from which God had fashioned Adam. The girl's fingertips were the wings of a moth doing an exquisite dance over his skin, stroking and coaxing with living flame. And then she straddled his body. This would be the moment, and Renton groaned, feeling the wetness and the warmth of her against his thigh. But her hand left off his member and brushed over his testes and lingered, holding him apart and exploring deeply. Hovering, corporeal, moving like a sinuous column of smoke her face inched down, down and although she had not taken a breath in over three hundred years it was as if a desert wind seared where the wetness of a serpent's tongue slavered. Renton wanted to fill her body now, and he could no longer stand the pleasure and the agony that were piercing his flesh. Her tongue was a whorl of white-hot excitement and the fervour of lust knotted up his desires. He wanted this pleasure to reach into the core of his soul, to feel her from the inside, for she was so gloriously beautiful. Renton gasped as Carmilla's mouth left his sex and he closed his eyes and went fought the spasm of lust. The fight left him all but senseless. The vampire dragged her fevered kiss up over his belly and tasted the man's hard nipples; and she covered his nakedness with the robes of midnight. Renton's face became entangled in the heavy tresses of her hair and his breath became stifled. And Carmilla drew back her lips but Renton did not see the terrible row of fangs, and the vulpine kiss was like fire, sinking into Renton's neck so deep that he clawed and groaned and tears spilled from his eyes. Ruby blood jetted upon the pillow. The darkness erupted in a blaze more intense than a collapsing star, incendiary, and Renton felt a delicious suffering such as he had never felt before. The vampire shook and quivered in its disgusting ecstasy, drinking from the font of Renton's life force. As the fresh blood poured into the chalice of Carmilla's flesh, it seeded something that was dreadful and yet wonderful. It gave her the strength and the vitality to challenge the coming storm, and she covered Renton's twitching flesh as if she were ice over the surface of a lake in winter. Even as he realised his mistake, that Mademoiselle Perrodon was not predator but rather victim, Renton ejaculated his seed. He could not stop the convulsion, not now, not while this exquisite stupor fuelled the sensual furnace of his being. He wanted to cry out his agony but he could not and he felt his soul being sucked into the tenebrous realm of darkness, and in that darkness he drowned in an ocean of blasphemous lust, the sounds of Carmilla's feeding like the rapturous tolling of bells. And the creature was ravenous. The poison flowed through Renton, through the vessel of his body and it throbbed with a rush of toxins that benumbed every muscle and rapidly erased all vestiges of his life.

Chapter 13

Ordeal and Execution

In which Ebhardt rescues Emma, and how The General, Baron Hartog and Mr. Morton search for the tomb of the Countess Mircalla.

Into Emma's room Carmilla glided. The brass and porcelain handle clicking softly as the door closed. She was dressed in white, drifting as a cloud drifts in a summer sky. As she crossed the room she reached out and gathered up Emma's pretty shawl and she came up to the bed. Emma was asleep, but she awoke as if upon a silent summons. Blinking Emma opened her eyes and turned her head. There was someone in the room with her, or was it a phantom, a ghost, a white thing shimmering in her blurry vision. Emma tried to focus her eyes. Those eyes were now set deep within her chalk-white face and they were darkly ringed. There was little animation in her face. The girl moaned and attempted to speak, but the words clogged up her throat and she could only whimper pathetically.

"Carmilla?" Emma wasn't sure if the girl she saw beside her bed was real or just a dream. Carmilla came so often in the dream and the dream always ended in pain. Part of Emma did not want Carmilla to be there because of that pain, but another part of her longed desperately for the girl to hold her tight. The emotions caused her an agonizing conflict.

"Emma," Carmilla responded as she leant over her love, "you can get up now."

Emma raised her head slightly but she was so fragile the movement hurt. "I think I'm too weak." Her head fell listlessly back upon the lacy pillow.

"No, I will give you strength," Carmilla encouraged. "Come."

The girl brushed against Emma and pressed close. Carmilla's skin was so smooth and cool, her hand gently stroked Emma's cheek. As Carmilla leant forward Emma glimpsed the pink buds of the girl's nipples showing through the diaphanous fabric of her gown. Her breast was so near that Emma believed in her delirium that she could see the tremble of Carmilla's heart beating under the skin. Over Carmilla's shoulders her hair fell in a heavy auburn wave. That hair was thick and it almost smothered, and Emma whimpered.

"Where?" Emma asked, for she did not feel that she could rise from the bed let alone walk into the night. Fear was clutching at her soul. How she adored Carmilla's friendship but she did not love as Carmilla loved. Emma knew, and it was a terrible thought, that she was without the strength now to go anywhere except to where her dear friend Laura had gone, to the grave. With the thought came the tears and with the tears the world began spinning and her head started reeling.

"I am taking you with me," Carmilla told her, but her voice had taken on a frantic edge. There was no time to be wasted for those avenging men would come for her soon and they would turn her world into ashes. The beautiful stranger took hold of her companion's arm and assisted her into a sitting position, pulling the shawl about the girl's shoulders.

"But my father?" Emma whispered in her stupor.

"Come," Carmilla responded, ignoring the question and almost pulling Emma from the bed. "There is no need for father's now, neither yours nor mine. Hurry!"

The carpet burned under Emma's bare feet as she stood and took a few shaky steps. Pain shot through her legs and hips. Carmilla opened the door and let it stand wide and the two girls passed through.

Gretchin had thrown the garlic flowers away. She had run down the garden path in the dark and tossed them into the midden heap. From somewhere beyond the forest she heard a howl and a snarl and her skin turned to gooseflesh. A wave of terror swept through her body and Gretchin's nerves got the better of her. Rumbling over the distant mountains was the sound of thunder and the maid thought that she saw, illumined in the brief sheet lightning, a dark, cuculate figure under the great oak beyond the garden. The sight made her gasp in shock, but when the lightning flashed again the shape had gone and Gretchin quickened her step back to the kitchen. Once inside she bolted the door and took a deep breath and told herself to calm down. There were things to be done before Renton came down and ordered her into service and she did not want to go through any further harassment at this late hour. The serving girl shook her head and rubbed at her arms. She felt cold and frightened as she looked around the kitchen. She had placed the vases she must empty on the sideboard near a covered tray that cook had prepared before retiring. The tufted sprigs of greens poked out from under the chequered cloth. A killed fowl hung plucked and upside down from a peg, dripping a soft patter of gore into the sluice. The sight of the dead bird made Gretchin shudder to go near it, but she must now empty the water from the vases and wash them and put them away before she could go to her cot. She took a jug of water and flushed away the blood and then she picked up one of the vases. The smell of garlic still clung to the jar and she set it down in the sluice to scrub and rinse. Gretchin sighed with the realisation that she might have to sit up all through the night again with Miss Emma, but Mr. Renton had been so contradictory in his orders that she was afraid to go back into her mistress's room. And then, from beyond the kitchen door Gretchin heard a loud rapping sound. She almost jumped out of her skin. The sound came again. The girl stood still, her eyes staring wide like a frightened rabbit and she looked to the door. She had no idea who could be knocking on the kitchen door at this time of the night and she was afraid, but without knowing exactly why something compelled her to open the door. In a strange trance she knocked over the second vase and the porcelain shattered on the kitchen flagstones as she reached out and pulled up the beam. She folded back the door and took a step back. A handsome woman stood on the doorstep. She was dressed in a long black cloak, the hood pulled up over her head, but her face gleamed from within it, gleamed like white china, and she smiled.

"May I come in?" asked the Countess, and Gretchin nodded that the regal lady might, and the door closed as she swept in from the night.

The stranger came up to the maid and reached up a slender arm. Gretchin didn't even flinch as the woman caressed and soothed away her terrors; and she hardly even felt the sharp teeth as they bit into her throat, nor the pain as the blood was sucked from her young, virginal flesh.

The men heaved against the tomb and with the harsh scraping noise of stone on stone the lid moved back. A shower of dust cascaded into its black confines. Baron Hartog lowered his lamp into the tumulus. A string of vines had burrowed into the stone and cracks zigzagged downward to where granite met earth. The tomb was empty.

"The coffin has gone!" uttered General Spielsdorf, his face locking into an anxious grimace.

"For God's sake, where?" asked Morton.

"Anywhere in this castle," the Baron remarked in a staunch, matter-of-fact tone, "or in these grounds." He looked to the General and the man shook his head as if he were in denial. It couldn't be so, to have come this far and not find the monster that had killed his niece. Justice must be done.

Reading his mind Baron Hartog reassured the General as he pulled his lamp back into the night, gently grasping the man's arm. A thread of mist curled up about the two men and danced before the light, occluding the candle flame. "But there is still time for I doubt that she has yet returned."

"You think not?" Morton ventured to ask, his eyes wide and fervid.

"She will not return," continued Hartog, "until she has glutted herself with the blood of at least one victim."

Hartog knew all too well that vampires were parasitic beings and that they must lie replete in their graves, wallowing in the blood and the filth upon which they had gorged. This creature would go to ground and might not be seen again for many years, but it must feast first.

"How can you be sure?" asked the General.

Baron Hartog's face became stern and vengeful and his words were brittle as he spoke them. "Vampires are intelligent beings, General. They know when the forces of good are arraigned against them. She will want to rest a long time in her coffin."

Another forty years, perhaps, he thought, but he did not speak that thought aloud. And that was why the monster must be found and destroyed, for she would be prepared for calamity and armed for battle. Morton moved away, casting his glance about but it was all so useless in the dark and the swirling mist. That coffin could be anywhere and there just wasn't time to look.

"If we can just find the shroud," Morton called, thrusting aside a low hanging branch and continuing to search. The General and Hartog moved off in the opposite direction and the General's coachmen followed, none were hopeful in their quest.

Carmilla helped Emma into the corridor. Clutching the young woman to her side, wrapping her in an all consuming and desperate embrace, Carmilla half dragged Emma along the gallery.

"You're coming with me," Carmilla said, stroking Emma's hair and kissing her pale face tenderly, "to my home, it's not far from here, you can rest there." The girl coaxed her invalid love to rest her head upon her shoulder. It was if she already suspected that her fight to cling to and retain her love might be gone. There was desperation and even sadness in her voice and there might have been glimpsed even the faintest trace of fear on her lovely face. She too understood that Emma could never walk that far, that the girl could not possibly survive the ordeal. Carmilla shuddered in self disgust, for she had drained too much of the girl's life away but she did not wish to relinquish her love.

Emma Morton groaned in her wasted agony, it seemed to exhaust the last of her failing strength. Simply staying on her feet and in Carmilla's arms consumed every breath and every tremulous heartbeat. It was painful to take step, and every faltering tread made her dizzy. Although she tried she did not think that she could do as Carmilla wanted. She attempted to raise an arm to her companion's shoulder, but instead only managed to clutch weakly at her hand. Emma's arm felt as if it were cast from lead. With a sorrowful and pathetic apology she threw a look of misgiving into Carmilla's eyes. It would do no good, wherever Carmilla must take her it did not matter, she felt death shadowing her frail step. Soon she would collapse and soon her breath would leave her, but there was something that she had to know.

"Carmilla," she gasped, struggling to breathe. "What is it that waits for us in the dark?"

Carmilla only clasped her harder, tighter and her face went waxy and the blood drained from her lips.

"Please tell me. I must know. It watches you, it commands you. Please…"

The beautiful transient lifted her lily-like palm and stroked her amour's wan cheek. With a strange smile she leaned into Emma's body until the two were cheek to cheek.

"My father," she whispered, and upon that utterance a great blast of wind descended upon the house and tore at its eaves and casements, stripping the ivy into flying pennants and snapping the boughs of the great oak in the park.

As he pulled himself up into his saddle Ebhardt beheld a vision in black billow up in the dark. The thing was composed of the substance of a shadow and it had waved at Ebhardt, laughing derisively and sitting high in the saddle upon its nightmare steed. A great wind had sprung up from the ether and with a triumphant shout the rider had hailed a challenge to the young man and spurred its beast into flight. Ebhardt gave chase. The two riders plunged down the mountainside, into the woods, flying at speed against the gale, the man in black thundering ahead. Sere leaves scattered in the wake of galloping hooves, low branches tore at Count Karnstein's cape and he howled with a wicked, mocking laughter that trailed in the wind. Argent sparks flashed from the hooves of his terrible steed, and with its head set low, its eyes white and straining in the sockets, he goaded it into the forest. The demon's roar was picked up by the whorl of the tempest and it resounded through Carl's frame as if someone had punched him in the chest. The blast shook Ebhardt and almost knocked him from his saddle. Yet the young man dug his heels into his horses flank as the mare veered and weaved under the trees and held his seat. Twigs scratched against Ebhardt's cheek as he rode under the low branches and his face was fixed in a grimace of terrible despairing hope. He doubted that he could catch the demon, doubted even less that his dash to rescue Emma Morton would be in time enough to save her, and he furrowed his brow and set his weight forward in the saddle. Faster he rode, the forest ways became swallowed in shadow and the celestial disc of the moon momentarily reappeared from a stitch in the clouds. By its wan light he glimpsed the shape on the horse ahead, its reins pulled taut, its teeth mad at the bit and the rider laughing, laughing. Soon the moon was again devoured by the violet clouds and the sylvan path was flooded with stencilled shadows. Ebhardt saw the brute he pursued stumble in the forest concourse, but the steed regained its stride, skimming over the earth as fleet as the wind. But that brief stumble had given him a slight advantage. As thunder boomed like canon fire overhead Ebhardt chased the demon onward and drew nearer. How his heart raced in the chase, pushed on by a rush of adrenaline, his mare careering as he held himself low to her neck, her flying mane whipping his cheek. In the stroke of a heartbeat Ebhardt drew closer to the rider on the black horse, nearer and nearer, so close that they would soon be side by side, but then with a graceful swoop the rider stretched out long arms, spreading them like black wings. Ebhardt beheld the demon at close range, the wind stinging his eyes. The Count was as is Erebus, composed of the night, and resembled neither bird nor bat but was more a flowing torrent of mephitic insanity. His cloak was like unto a flapping pennant, like plumage that trailed black threads of mist. And the mist thickened and confused the way, roiled up about both riders so that soon all Ebhardt could see were the red and fiery sparks of the monster's eyes. The young man reached out to snatch at the billowing cape but the mist thickened and darkness swallowed darkness and the path narrowed and horse and rider became obscured. Ebhardt's fingers grasped only empty vapours. Yet Carl did not slacken his pace. He must not fail, not this time, for he understood his imperative that the woman he sought to save might even now be dead, or worse than dead, become one of the undead. He had to catch the demon he chased and destroy it or Emma Morton's soul was in deadly peril of being lost forever. And then the Count gave a screeching whoop and his horse sped from Ebhardt's side. In a sudden rush of cruel fury the vision on the dark horse vanished in the night and Ebhardt's mount abruptly burst from the woods and into the Morton's carriageway.

Carmilla led Emma to the stairs, and as they staggered one faltering step at a time in their descent a door opened upon their backs. Mademoiselle Perrodon filled the door frame, clad in her nightdress, her raven locks tumbling in a dishevelled storm about her face, her breasts heaving with every gasping breath. She glanced about in confusion, as if searching, seeking Carmilla, but in her disoriented countenance there was only the image of desperation and irremediable anxiety. She clutched at the door frame for support, almost unable to stand upright herself, weak from the kiss of the vampire but too much obsessed by desire to be discarded in her love.

"Carmilla!" she called out as she beheld the beautiful woman and young Emma in the stairs.

Carmilla glanced back but did not cease her descent. Mademoiselle Perrodon knew then the pain and the humiliation of rejection, knew that Carmilla did not care for her at all, but had used her. The girl had used love as a weapon to protect herself, protect her worship for Emma. Mademoiselle Perrodon shook her head in disbelief, panic-stricken, terrified that she would be left to die alone, for indeed she felt that she must die if she lost Carmilla. Without the beautiful stranger she would turn into dust, her heart would cease to beat and her soul would wither. Life was hateful, and she cried, begging, "Carmilla, take me with you... please!" She sagged limply against the stair rail and fell into a convulsing heap at the top of the landing. At the bottom of the stairs Carmilla gently pushed Emma into the alcove, and Emma sagged against the door panel like a rag doll teetering upon the brink of a fall. Turning quickly the beautiful girl flicked aside the drop of her translucent gown and took to the stairs, flowing up them rather than walking, ascending in a white and furious cloud. The Governess flung out her arm, imploring, and Carmilla merely flicked the limb aside and glared down. She stopped beside the Governess and stooped and knelt to embrace the woman, her thick auburn locks tumbling over Mademoiselle's face. And Mademoiselle thought that Carmilla would kiss her, for the beautiful girl's lips pursed wetly and hovered over the other's lips. But no kiss was delivered. Mademoiselle Perrodon in her final agonies saw Carmilla's eyes become hard and cruel; they were alight with a spark of hatred and loathing and no mercy glowed therein, no kindness, no love. Carmilla's face was a mask of splendid beauty, but composed of a terrible fury, the flash of livid ire blazing red upon her features, red like the facetted jewel that hung around her neck. Instead of sympathy the beautiful stranger's visage was twisted up in anger and appeared to collapse inward and then to remould itself. Altering into something horrible Carmilla shuddered, her body splitting and opening like a ghastly flower, a thing that could claim to be neither beast nor human but something abominably wrought between twilit worlds. There were no words that can describe the horror's physicality as it abruptly altered and changed, formed and deformed in the blink of an eye, crouched over the prostrate woman lying helpless in its grasp. The Governess with wide panic-stricken eyes witnessed Carmilla's nose divide and peel back into a flat conical muzzle above a thin slash of lips from which protruded a row of triangular razor sharp fangs. From between those awful lips and awls the tongue extended, a rippling, salivating tongue that flicked rapidly back and forth, forming a wetly obscene and quivering furrowing dart. It flashed down and wiped lasciviously and violently over the woman's face from chin to forehead, from ear to ear, lapping at her skin in a rough and slick stroke that was sickening and sticky. And then it expectorated a ropy trail of spittle and the hideous organ sealed Mademoiselle Perrodon's mouth in a vile kiss. With the tongue came the stench of a carcass that had rotted into putrefaction and Mademoiselle Perrodon felt the scream and a tide of vomit simultaneously rising in her throat. She tried to thrust her face aside but it was useless for Carmilla held her pinned down, smothering her in a tide of hair that was more bristling animal fur than human locks, by arms and hands that had become sinewy, strong and claw-like. At the bottom of the staircase Emma looked on stunned. Her mind refused to believe the revolting and unbelievable spectacle passing before her eyes. It was a scene that could only be played out in her nightmares, and even such frenzied imaginings, awful as they were, could not compare to the brutal horror that was this. Carmilla, her beautiful guest, was no longer the slim and lovely sylph who sat with her in the evening, who tenderly stroked her cheek, who kissed and embraced her and lulled away the bad dreams with the melody of her soft voice.

"No!" Mademoiselle Perrodon gagged, and in that one inarticulate word a limp and revolted exclamation of pure terror as the beast's tongue forced her lips apart and slithered like a bloated worm down her throat. The Governess convulsed and tried to fight the monster off but Carmilla was changing physically into something from the most lurid nightmare, a thing that no longer bore the semblance of the soft female flesh that had lain with her own, that had touched her own skin with a sensuous caress, but into something that resembled a monstrous chimera of cat and bat all coalesced within a depraved human coil. The young woman's arms had become thick, elongated and muscled and vaguely winged as they entwined, enwrapped and pinned the Governess to the floor. Carmilla's hands became grasping claws and the tips of her fingers popped and become lethal honed scythes. With a snarl of rage the razored sickles embedded into Mademoiselle Perrodon's breast, going deep and tearing her nightdress away. The woman's naked bosom spilled out of the rent fabric, milky white upon white and the pink tipped bosom was savagely shredded into a rag of spurting scarlet. Slicing through the soft flesh the claws tore the breast away and raked deeper, deeper in between the victim's ribs and into her beating heart. The Governess stiffened like a beam of timber and shrieked out her agony, a sound choked off by the foul intrusion of the beast's tongue, and releasing the woman's gasping lips the monster fell upon the torn bosom. There the monster fed, gorging at the font of life, gulping frenziedly at the blood that shot forth from the wounds, gnashing its ghastly lacerating teeth and throbbing in a spasm as it sated. And then it lifted its freakish head and looked into the Governess's glazed, staring eyes and in a fury it dived upon her throat, ripping its ghastly wide and snapping jaws back and forth until the head separated from the torso and tumbled down the stairs. Emma opened her lips and screamed. The scream was a release from the paralyses that bound her bones and she collapsed against the wall as it resounded throughout the house. A tide of blood spilled down the stairs. The severed head bounced in repetitive thuds in its descent, its eyes opening even wider, its lips stretching apart in a hopeless and silent scream. Mademoiselle Perrodon's head rolled to rest at Emma's bare feet, a splash of scarlet spattering her ankles. The sightless eyes glared up at Emma accusingly and the lips gave one last and final quiver and Emma Morton swooned upon the brink of fainting. With a violent crash the door burst inward.

Ebhardt saw Emma falling against the wall, he saw the head of the decapitated Governess spin to a stop at the young girl's feet and he looked up to the scene of carnage on the upper floor. A wave of insanely flapping shades, as of furiously beating wings folded in upon themselves, reassembling a beastly and indescribable image into the frame of the beautiful Carmilla. And there was blood spattered over her nightdress, upon her hands and her breasts, and worst of all it smeared the woman's lovely lips. Carl felt a shock pass through his body but he stepped forward and drew his sword. His blade sang a high note as it swished from it scabbard.

"Mircalla!" he shouted, seeing for the first time since Laura's death the very creature that had drained away the life of his bride-to-be. Each recognised the other and the woman responded, her face becoming a mask of fury. With the back of her hand she wiped away the blood that stained her mouth and she growled like an animal. Emma began to sob, helpless and with nowhere to flee and no strength left to even crawl if she could. She felt herself sick in the very core of her being and falling into darkness, but even so, Carl was here and she closed her eyes and slumped against the wall. The vampire glanced toward the coveted object of desire then back again to the young man who had dared interfere. Flicking aside the drape of her filmy robe Carmilla stepped over the headless corpse of the Governess and slowly and deliberately came down the stairs. Her feet squelched in the gore upon the carpeted steps and she threw back her head with a haughty gesture, half smiling between the row of glistening fangs, and Ebhardt quaked but held his stance, his knuckles turning white about the handle of his blade. He readied himself for the strike.

Carmilla threw herself upon him, snarling with a bestial rage that sent a shiver of horror through the young man's body. She snatched at his sword and with one effortless gesture, flicked the weapon aside as though it were a twig. Ebhardt felt his wrist smart with pain as the blade was wrenched from his grasp, and then before he could react, Carmilla held him by the hair, pulling his head down and forcing him upon his knees. Carl's back arched like a bow and Carmilla's grasp was like ice and strong, and the skin in his neck went taut and she gripped harder, her jaws snapping like an animal. Down they came and grazed his cheek, those long and dagger-sharp fangs, and their points indented into his throat, raking the seal of his skin. Ebhardt struggled against the creature, clutching at her, and the two thrashed about in a titan struggle, the young man buckling under her strength. Carl tried to reach for his sword, but it had been flung far out of reach, and he heard Emma whimper. Carmilla held him down but in the very moment that she could have killed him she withdrew her poisoned mouth and stared past his shoulder at the girl she loved. Emma met Carmilla's eyes and therein she saw sorrow and tears, but she saw horror too and she looked away as if she had looked into the face of Medusa.

"Holy Mother of God, protect me," Emma prayed aloud, and Ebhardt felt the vampire's grip lessen. "Sacred heart of Jesus, save me!"

In that instant Carmilla knew her failure. Emma, her beloved, had rejected her, and without that love there was only darkness and endless night. In that short but lingering look Carmilla had encountered the final truth, that she was an abomination and a puppet. For three hundred years she had lived her unnatural existence at the behest of other powers and that no one would ever truly love her, and most certainly never Emma. All Emma saw now was the monster. Carmilla wished the end of her dark and undead life, and knew ultimately what she had to do. Even before Ebhardt had reached to the dagger at his boot, Carmilla let go her hold and stepped back. The candlelight glanced off the polished iron blade and Ebhardt held it high. It gleamed and the reflected luminance splashed across Carmilla's lovely face, branding her with its cruciform light. With a pained sob the beautiful stranger shut her eyes and with both hands she clasped the fiery ruby that depended from her neck.

"Apage Satana!" Ebhardt shouted, holding the dagger up, and Emma crumpled to the floor in a faint. "Apage Satana!" the young man called again, standing straight as a spear, and in exorcising the revenant he watched as it backed away and became a wreath of curling mist.

Stepping toward Carmilla, Carl realised he was too late to destroy her. Ebhardt aimed quickly and flung his blade, but it only sang in the air, straight through the dispersing ethereal form of the beautiful Countess, and smashed into a vase, spilling bloom and water and broken china upon the floor. Carmilla had vanished into thin air. Then an abrupt stillness fell over the Morton house and a look of confusion twisted up Ebhardt's handsome face. He could hardly believe what he had just witnessed and he did not know where the demon had gone or by what agency. He turned back to Emma and saw that she lay prostrate on the floor, and stooping he gathered her frail body up and dashed upstairs to her bedroom.

As he laid the cold and pale girl upon her bed he saw that she was still breathing and he gave a sigh of thankful relief. With swift pace he went around the bed to pull up the covers and keep her warm, and stepping back he knocked against the dressing table. From its secret place, bound under the drawer, a hidden book tumbled free and fell to the floor, and Ebhardt reached down and picked it up.

Baron Hartog turned and when he did he glimpsed a wraithlike figure floating through the trees. Quickly he signalled the General and Morton and the men, and all took to hiding behind a thicket. They watched the Sylph approach, her feet skimming the ground, the tide of mist folding back at her passing. She glided to the entrance of the castle and there she paused and looked back. Baron Hartog held his breath. After the long passage of forty years he now set his eyes once again upon the girl who had slaughtered his sister. Mircalla was unchanged, as graceful and as beautiful as she had been on the day his father had invited her into their abode. And she knew they were there, she had smelled their presence in the fetid air; this posse who had come to hunt her down, and kill her. Impassively she turned away and the mist closed over her and she disappeared as does a phantom. When she had gone Baron Hartog waved the men from hiding.

They entered the decrepit and derelict keep and the search continued throughout its crumbling halls. Baron Hartog felt weary and he wished the night over. He no longer had the fortitude to rally against the forces of darkness and he feared now that they might have lost her. If she eluded them this night she would not return for another forty years and their vengeance upon her would be as nothing. Thus had he decided to amend his _History of Evil_, knowing that if they failed this night, the generations to come could be armed and ready if the monster again invaded Stiria. He stopped to catch his breath and put down his lantern. Before the portrait of Mircalla, Mr. Morton lingered, studying it and seeing a face that knew of all the depravities that lurked within his skin. He did not like that thought, that this girl should recognise him for that which he truly was, and with a sneer he said aloud, "Only now can I see the evil in _her _eyes!" And then he glanced in shame at his feet.

Between the flagstones a golden thread glinted in the lantern light. Morton gasped and went down upon his knee, and stretched out his trembling fingertips. He picked up a jewel, a great glowing ruby, and it was exactly like the jewel that encircled the throat of the girl in the painting. Morton's mind flashed back to the image of his lovely houseguest, and therein his eyes he saw the same ruby as it nestled between her high and shapely breasts. It dripped upon its chain like a swollen drop of blood.

"General Spielsdorf!" he exclaimed, almost dancing on the spot. "Over here!"

The General's men brought forth a box from the carriage and from it they took an iron bar and a hammer, and with these they cracked the mortars and hauled back the flagstones. Concealed under the flooring was a long box, a coffin, and the inscription on the lid proclaimed that it was the final bower of the Countess Mircalla Karnstein who had died three hundred years before. General Spielsdorf wiped the dust from the nameplate and read the appellation aloud.

"Into the chapel," the Baron indicated. "Take the handles."

The men each took a handle and carried the coffin into the deconsecrated church and set it down across some pews. At the cobwebbed altar Mr. Morton righted a golden cross and genuflected; the Archangel Michael was poised with his righteous sword raised in the dusty stained glass of the Gothic arch above their heads. With their iron bar the men pried back the coffin lid.

Therein lay the beautiful vampire, enwrapped in her grave clothes, still and serene and undead.

Ebhardt held Emma close and she stirred from her faint and clung to him and whimpered. He whispered to her that everything was all right but she knew it wouldn't be because the vampire was invincible; no man could best such a thing of evil. It had fed upon her blood, she was now part of its being, and although she could not physically see the struggle taking place within the castle, she could sense it. She felt every surge of violent energy that the demon emitted and its every desire to hold and to keep her till eternity. Part of her did not wish General Spielsdorf to succeed and yet she was repulsed by the truth that she had been kissed by the lips of Sappho. Ebhardt stroked her hair gently and laid her back upon the pillow. Emma trembled. She witnessed what came next even though she did not share the same space, for she was safe in her home but Carmilla was not safe in hers.

"I will do it," the General said in a grave and angry tone, and he removed his gloves and peeled back his sleeves and unwrapped the shroud that bound the beautiful vampire's body. He looked upon the lovely face and his eye was filled with her beauty. He could plainly see the shape of her bosoms and the shadow of her sex under the thin material of her burial garb, but such charms held little allure for him. He was angry, raged that a mere woman should have bested him, invaded and desecrated his house, destroyed his dreams. The General felt his lips twitch in rile. Baron Hartog handed him a sharp, long and sturdy wooden pike.

Morton closed his eyes and knelt before the altar and the cross and hypocritically began to pray.

General Spielsdorf cast an incensed eye upon the Englishman and spoke to his friend, the Baron.

"He is praying that his daughter is still alive," he uttered disparagingly, his voice edged with a barely muted violence. "And then he added, "I know that Laura is dead."

Spielsdorf raised the stake above Mircalla's breast and it hovered, sharp and lethal just above her left nipple.

Emma Morton sat upright in her bed and stared into the ether, caught in the vision of a spectacle that she could not share with Ebhardt, trapped within her own living nightmare.

"Dear God, no!" she cried out, but the General could not hear her plea.

The General felt a rush, a charge electric rip through his nerves and muscles and he thrust the stake down with all of his might. In that instant the vampire awoke from her passive undead dreaming. Mircalla's eyes sprang wide and their balls rolled back into their sockets, then she shuddered. She writhed and squirmed and dust motes in the air began to whirl and to gather into her shroud, forming some otherworldly solidity of shape and appearance that was not human. Into the ether the dust began to pour, to ascend, and to churn, spinning in a whorl of sparks and thunder. The demon was altering, becoming other. Baron Hartog looked on in horror. He saw a creature metamorphosing in the air, a phantasm of serous flesh that was darkly aeriform. Surely it had to be evil incarnate, a conjuration that was impossibly being birthed and was perhaps even more dangerous than it had been in female form. And yet there was a surreal grace to this damned thing as it transmuted from the mist and the dust. It weaved like a snake, seductive and sensual and powerful, solidifying and yet incorporeal. The General wavered in his strike and began to drink in the wonder and the dark beauty of its form. His body trembled and he was pierced by the strangest arrow of excitement, goaded no less by the thrill of the danger. But he could smell the vampire; smell not the foul corruption that was death but a bittersweet perfume of muscle and sinew and blood and of roses. She was changing, becoming serous, lithe and sinuous, majestic in all her vampiric glory, comprised of the elements and somehow faultless for it. Spielsdorf seemed to know this, even as he hated her, and to feel an unaccountable respect for the creature that she was, but he knew he had to destroy her. In her eyes the General could see the tiny reflections of himself, and therein she made him recognise his own sin. She understood his secrets, understood his futile love for the young man who had gone to save Emma. And she sang to him her siren's song so that his will almost buckled, and as she did so her conjuration began to slough its misty skin, dropping flesh-like scales in a cascade of falling stars and black fire. Here was flesh spawned from a dark nothing. Time began to slow and hope began to shrivel away and General Spielsdorf felt his blood surging hotly in his veins. He was losing his head, surely, for he felt as if he were upon the brink of offering his own throat to the creature, to be as one with it and to know the ultimate existence, to know all of life's secrets and those of death too and be like unto a dark God. His heart was racing and near bursting. It was a glorious promise that the demon offered, to exist for all eternity, until the very sun collapsed and never to feel the reality of strife or remorse, to sample every delight that the dark world could make possible. The monstrous flapping winged apparition was changing into is final transmutation, into the shape of bat and feral cat, huge and vicious and slavering. From the boiling clouds in the upward reaches of the vaulted ceiling lightning was flashing, the atmospheres whirling with spellbinding beauty, and yet the vision was dreadful in its wonder. Morton looked up, for he had to see, and the revelation he saw pouring in into that column of black mist was like unto a spirit, a thing that did not belong to reality, an entity that unfolded huge wings, arched and veined with lightning. It beat its wings angrily and opened the cavernous abyss of its mouth, ready to spew planet-fire down upon General Spielsdorf's flesh. The phantasm bellowed and Baron Hartog thought he saw a glimpse of the matter from which the universe was made. The vision flickered with a scintillating kaleidoscope of darkness and ruby reds, a winged fantasy that let loose its fire and bathed the General in blue flame. Yet the fire did not touch the man, it did not tear away his skin and there was no agony for in that very moment he summoned his last strength and slammed the stake through the woman with all of his might. As the spike thrust Mircalla abruptly sat erect within her coffin and her hand shot out and gripped the timber as it entered her body, the point splitting the target of her heart.

The general and Mircalla became melded in that instant and Emma Morton, in her somnambulistic trance screamed and screamed and screamed.

The General pushed the spike deeply into the vampire's breast and his eyes shut fast so that he did not have to look into hers nor at the billowing hallucination above. As the stake smashed through ribs and muscle and erupted through Mircalla's back a torrent of gore spurted from her torn breast. Blood jetted from the exit wound and Mircalla's visage changed from one of victory into one of abject horror. Her cry was a sound that only the damned could make; it erupted from a monster's tongue, raw and intense and shattered the stained glass in the windows, throwing a shower of coloured splinters upon the altar and upon Morton where he knelt. The marble flagstones cracked and split a long fissure directly between Baron Hartog's feet. Emma collapsed into Ebhardt's embrace and through the chapel a terrible, howling wind tore a maelstrom about the room, ripping the tapestries from their rods and whipping the coloured pennants into a mad flapping storm of malice. The wind churned upward into the vaulted heights and lightning tipped clouds blackened the ceiling. The creature in the coffin shrieked and its baleful eyes burned with an unholy radiance. A blade of lightning flashed silver and a titanic clap of thunder boomed in the mountain pass. In that strip of silver light General Spielsdorf was lit from head to toe in a luminance that made his body scintillate with sparks, ringed him with a halo that would have blinded any mortal eye. And then the vision above evaporated and Mircalla fell back into the rigid confines of her box and was still. A look of peace and beatitude smoothed away the lines of agony that had twisted up her lovely face.

Across the forest, in her bedroom Emma clasped Ebhardt and was held fast in his embrace. They heard the boom of the thunderclap and they trembled in each other's arms.

General Spielsdorf leaned back and straightened his shoulders, wiping a spray of blood from his lips. He placed his sword across the width of the coffin.

"There's no other way?" he asked, his voice trembling, and Baron Hartog shook his head in the negative.

The General marshalled the rest of his vigour and gripped the staked creature by the hair and pulled her upright. She sagged in his grip like a broken doll, the lance protruding from her bosom, and the General gripped his blade. With a tortured grimace he cut off her head.

As the blood vomited forth and the body collapsed back into the coffin, Morton crossed himself and uttered up a final prayer.

"Let us pray to God," he pleaded, "that Stiria has been rid of these devils forever!"

And the General uncurled his fingers from the cascade of auburn hair and the severed head dropped back upon its bloody pillow.

Emma Morton burst into hysterical sobs, and as the tears flowed from her eyes Ebhardt caressed her and told her that it was over and that everything would be all right. Emma did not believe him. And then, even as she quivered Emma saw that the coveted tome she had hidden had been revealed and that Ebhardt had placed it on the dressing table in plain sight. She closed her eyes and vowed to burn it from cover to cover.

High up in the mountain the storm finally broke and a light patter of rain began to wash the ancient granite of the tomb of the Countess Mircalla. The bleak night would soon become a grey day and the air had turned bitterly cold. General Spielsdorf's coachmen helped carry the coffin back to its crypt and the great heavy slab was heaved back into place and the tomb sealed against the dawn. From the periphery of the forest Count Karnstein watched his daughter's funeral procession and his eyes burned with a lustre that was hotter than the sun. In the great hall of the castle Mircalla's portrait began to decay. Paint peeled and blistered, shrivelling what had been the useless hindrance of human-like flesh and revealed the monster that had always festered under Mircalla's skin. No word in the tongue of humankind could have properly described the thing. That once beautiful visage began to crack apart and the painted flesh commenced to stream smoke and to collapse into itself, ashes became its hands and tresses, coals expiring became it's once sapphire blue eyes. At length it became what it always had been, something of the elements, expiring in the canvas and turning into dust. When the last painted stroke had turned Mircalla, the Countess Karnstein into an unrecognisable pile of ashen waste, the canvas lurched on its chain and the links snapped. The gilded frame fell to the floor and shattered apart. Then all was silent.

And so ends this account of the fearsome Karnsteins, and closed is the book, sealing the second part of this _History of Evil. _Before God may we be spared from these supernatural happenings again. Nevertheless, when I recall the beautiful creature that murdered my sister I look into the eye of memory and I see Mircalla's eyes. Looking deeper, I see the beast that lieth within. I also see eternal evil and despair and I know, even as I finish this memoriam, that the lovely Mircalla, who came to us disguised as both Marcilla and Carmilla, has not truly gone to her final rest, but must surely come among us again. Such is the nature of the vampire's unnatural existence, and God help those who shall fall under her spell. God help those who lust for a vampire. Alas, only the pure can rise to fight against her. Through her are the living doomed by her affections and through the living is she herself eternally damned to seek for love amid the ashes of her own ghastly plight. Mircalla's fate is beyond death, for it is that she must be punished perpetually, and being 'other' and forever restless she is damned never to find happiness. Mircalla's is a deadly desire, unending and passionate, her caress is tender but chilled as if by ice, her kiss is a kiss that kills. Therefore, it is for the living and so it is for the dead, and as even the dead can love, there can be no rest for the vampire lovers.

Epilogue

"Stay a while longer," the handsome village lad pleaded, gently holding on to the pretty girl's hand. She smiled with pink lips and rosy cheeks and shook her head, her golden hair shining in the warm afternoon sunlight. She would have liked nothing better than to stay for a bit longer at the tavern and share a kiss with her beau, but she dare not.

"I can't," she said, looking up and smiling as the tavern girl brought her a basket of sandwiches and beer. "My father gets angry if dinner is late."

"Shall I see you tonight?"

"Perhaps."

With a giggle she strolled off, her basket looped over her arm, leaving the tavern and skirting the forest, heading for the fields where her father would be threshing the hay. As she skipped along the sun suddenly dipped behind a cloud and a shadow engulfed the land. The girl glanced up to the louring sky. She saw a stormy cloud brewing and a faint streak of silver lightning. The girl told herself that perhaps she had best hurry, and she began to walk faster along the open road. A black coach soon drew alongside her and she stopped and smiled up at the coachman, but he did not smile down upon her. A shape moved behind the window glass and the door opened. The girl beheld a fine looking woman dressed in a scarlet gown and a long flowing black cape. She smiled at the peasant girl and told her that it looked as if the weather would soon turn nasty. She offered the girl a ride, and obliged and thrilled, for she had never ridden in a coach before, the girl climbed up into the velvet-buttoned compartment. As the coachman cracked his whip, a volt of lightning cut a liquid path to the earth and the horses lurched forth in a wild gallop. And the village girl screamed. Up the way the carriage thundered, toward the castle on the hill, and therein her fresh, warm blood would be offered in sacrifice to the Lord of the Damned, and her death would herald a new beginning for a new recruit to the ranks of the undead.


End file.
